SC county magistrate faces federal charges of possession of child pornography

A Charleston County magistrate was arrested Tuesday by federal agents and faces charges of possession of child pornography.

The charges against Magistrate James B. Gosnell Jr. were made public around 5 p.m. Tuesday after a federal criminal complaint setting out the charges against him and an affidavit concerning the evidence was posted on the federal court records database known as PACER.

Earlier Tuesday, Gosnell was arrested by Homeland Security Investigations, the investigative arm of Homeland Security.

He is based in North Charleston and one of 14 magistrates in Charleston County.

After Gosnell was taken into custody, but before the complaint against him was made public, S.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Kittredge, acting on behalf of the court, ordered Gosnell suspended from his office.

Kittredge wrote his action was “based on credible information provided to this court” that Gosnell’s continued service as a magistrate “poses a substantial threat of serious harm to the public and the administration of justice.”

An 11-page arrest warrant and affidavit in the case said evidence against Gosnell links him to buying child sex abuse material, also known as child pornography, on the internet.

The affidavit said internet addresses used to purchase child pornography had been traced to an email account used by Gosnell and that money had been paid to download child sex abuse material.

On Monday, Sept. 15, 2025, federal Magistrate Judge Molly Cherry signed a search warrant for Gosnell’s house.

Early Tuesday, agents executed the search warrant at Gosnell’s home.

“Gosnell answered the door in response to law enforcement’s knock. I advised Gosnell that law enforcement was executing a search warrant in furtherance of an investigation of child sex abuse material,” wrote Homeland Security Investigations agent Kyle Tallio in an affidavit in the complaint.

Gosnell told agents he believed he received the thumb drive from “a guy in Charleston” he met online approximately six or seven years ago, the affidavit said. According to Gosnell, the thumb drive contained hundreds of videos of child porn, the affidavit said.

Gosnell also told agents he had sent money for child sex abuse material and that his computer had been hacked while he had attempted to send money over the internet to buy child and adult pornography, the affidavit said.

Numerous electronic devices including flash drives were seized. Devices had graphic images on them depicting an infant, a toddler and a young boy in sex acts, the affidavit said.

A press release from the U.S. Attorney’s office in South Carolina said the investigation began when HSI agents got a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about multiple financial transactions with a known distributor of child sexual abuse material from the United Kingdom.

The payments came from a peer-to-peer online money transfer account associated with Gosnell’s known phone number, address, and email account, the press release said. The transactions occurred in November 2024.

During Tuesday’s search of Gosnell’s house, agents located numerous videos and images depicting child sexual abuse, including videos and images of prepubescent minors, infants, and toddlers engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Gosnell is set to be arraigned Wednesday morning before Magistrate Judge Cherry.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Katherine Orville, Whit Sowards, and Emily Limehouse are prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the U.S. Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims, the press release said.

Gosnell is the second South Carolina public official to be arrested this year on child pornography-related charges. In June, former S.C Rep. R.J. May, R-Lexington, was indicted on multiple counts of distributing child pornography on the internet. May, who has since resigned his post, is being held without bond in jail until his trial, now scheduled for early October.

This is a breaking news story and may be updated.

This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 6:02 PM with the headline "SC county magistrate faces federal charges of possession of child pornography."