Blairsville man arrested for sexual exploitation of children

Commonly referred to as ICAC, the Task Force is a collaborative law enforcement program that brings invaluable state and federal resources to bear in tracking down offenders who would abuse or exploit children online.

In the past, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation handled local ICAC activity. After assisting with a couple of GBI cases in 2020, Sgt. Pilote made it known he wanted to step up his ability to handle tips that led to criminal offenders here, so he joined the Task Force that December.

Fast forward to 2025, and that is how Pilote came to arrest Patterson.

The investigation stemmed from a cyber tip filed by Google earlier this year after the massive internet company flagged dozens of illegal images in the possession of one of its accountholders, who turned out to be Patterson.

Google filed its tip with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which determined the images were accessed on a Georgia-based device, and the tip was forwarded to the GBI.

As the coordinator for the ICAC Task Force in Georgia, GBI utilized its resources to narrow down the point of possession to a device in Blairsville before passing the tip on to Task Force Member Pilote of the Union County Sheriff’s Office.

After going through a search warrant process with Google and completing additional investigatory steps, Pilote and a team of law enforcement officers arrived at Patterson’s home last Thursday to search it and take him – and some of his electronic devices – into custody.

Pilote said the dozens of images downloaded by Patterson did not appear to contain local victims. Further, Pilote said there is no indication to date that Patterson has personally abused any children.

Patterson is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. He remained in the Union County Jail at press time with a $120,000 bond.

Sgt. Pilote credits the Task Force with enabling swift arrests in cases involving the internet, where it can be difficult to isolate offenders given the global nature of the technology: “The network, the resources, the training – ICAC is absolutely phenomenal.”

And the influence of ICAC goes beyond providing tremendous resources to local investigations. As a Task Force member, Pilote looks forward to hosting yearly presentations for students at Union County Schools, to arm them with information on how to protect their privacy online.

Regarding the Patterson case, Pilote would like to thank everyone involved, from the Task Force to his fellow deputies as well as the Georgia Department of Natural Resources Law Enforcement Division, which lent a game warden for the search and arrest.

A father himself, Pilote said cases like this strike uncomfortably close to home. It’s a tough job; he must review all reported images to see if such tips fall into the “contraband” arena. But what he has found across multiple cases has only reinforced his aims to prevent harm to children.

“That makes it very challenging, but by the same token, it makes that drive even stronger to hammer these guys,” Pilote said of arrests that end up in conviction. “It’s not for the faint of heart.

“Luckly, we’re not inundated where we have to look at this stuff every single day, but it’s not easy to be looking at it period – you’re talking about the innocence of a child.”

One of the many reasons UCSO takes crimes involving sexually explicit images of children so seriously is that the seeking out of such images can act as a “gateway” behavior, potentially escalating to physical abuse, and none of the above is tolerated in Union County.

“We’re proud to have the capabilities to go after these type crimes and the resources to make these arrests,” Sheriff Shawn Dyer said. “The more that we can catch early, the less likely we are to have somebody that goes farther than just using their computer. Just don’t do this is you’re going to live here.”