Man Arrested For Obscene Internet Contact With Child, Twice: Cops

CANTON, GA — An Athens man is back in custody for a second time in less than two months for communicating with what he thought was a 13-year-old girl, but was in fact a Cherokee Sheriff's Office Internet Crimes Against Children investigator.

On Sept. 29, James Wesley Smith, 21, was arrested and charged with two counts of obscene internet contact with a child, electronically furnishing obscene material to a minor and sexual exploitation of children.

Smith bonded out of the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center on Oct. 17 and despite the fact that one of his conditions of bond was "shall have no internet access," he started communicating within three weeks of his release with Cherokee Sheriff's Investigators who he believed was the same girl he had been communicating with in September, officials said.

New charges were filed, and Smith was arrested by Athens-Clarke County officers at his home Monday night. Smith is now charged with two counts of obscene internet contact with a child.

Smith is currently in custody in Clarke County but was transported to the Cherokee Adult Detention Center.