Georgia University Official Arrested on Child Pornography Charges

Jeffrey Delk, a development officer for the University of Georgia, has been arrested and charged with the possession of child pornography.

Delk, 51, was the University’s assistant director of development for gift and estate planning. He has worked for the University since 2000, and previously served as a development officer for the Hugh Hodgson School of Music. Delk resigned shortly after the arrest, according to Tom Jackson, the University’s vice president for public affairs.

Athens-Clarke County police obtained a search warrant for Delk’s house after receiving information regarding the possession of suspected child pornography from the GBI’s Internet Crimes against Children Task Force. The GBI also assisted in the search of Delk’s home. Officers seized computers and a cell phone from the residence. Delk was arrested and charged with 43 counts of sexual exploitation of children.

It remains to be seen whether the evidence will be sufficient to convict Delk of knowingly possessing child pornography. Many times, child pornography is accidentally downloaded or cache files are stored by the computer’s operating system without the user’s knowledge. Hopefully, a full investigation of Delk’s hard drive will be conducted to determine whether he knew the files were being stored on his computer. For a full discussion of what constitutes the possession of child pornography under Georgia Law, see Part I and Part II of our posts on this topic on our online reference manual Georgia Sex Offense Law.