A Fort Gordon Cyber Center employee who had top-secret clearance has been arrested for uploading child porn on a phone messaging app.
Robert Collins III, a 48-year-old resident of Columbia County, was charged Wednesday with sexual exploitation of children after a GBI investigation.
The GBI Thomson office got a report in reference to Collins’ online activity and searched his home with the help of the sheriff’s office. From a location on Arden Way in Evans, he allegedly uploaded “child sexual abuse material” on Feb. 2, 2022, to an account on Kik, a free messaging app that allows users to send and receive text messages, photos, videos and more.
Collins is listed on LinkedIn as a Chief Force Integration Officer for the U.S. Army Signal School. He is a Fort Gordon Department of the Army civilian employee and describes his responsibilities as managing and operating the personnel life-cycle management program. He said he is the strategic human resource planner for U.S. Army Signal officers and warrant officers employed worldwide.
His biography says he us a “Result-oriented senior level professional with active Top Secret security clearance.” It says he served on active duty with the Army for 22 years, retiring at the rank of lieutenant colonel. Collins’ bio also says he currently serves on the board of directors for Good Will and Augusta Technical College.
Collins was being held Friday night under no bond at the Columbia County Detention Center.
The investigation is part of the ongoing effort by the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, housed within the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit, to identify those involved in the trade of child sexual abuse material. The ICAC Program, created by the U.S. Department of Justice, was developed in response to the increasing number of children and teenagers using the Internet, the proliferation of child sexual abuse material, and the heightened online activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with underage victims.
