A former chairman of the Jones County GOP in South Dakota has been charged with possession of child pornography, according to the The Argus Leader .
Rocky Hayes, 47, has been accused of having child sexual assault material in his Dropbox account.
According to court documents, a Dropbox employee saw a file with child pornography connected to an account with the screen name “Rocky Hayes”on September 25. The file allegedly contained a 16-second video of an adult male raping a child between the ages of 9 to 12 years old.
That resulted in a cyber tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The tip was passed to an agent in the South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation.
Agents then executed a search warrant at Hayes’ home, near an elementary school, and found two additional videos on an external hard drive in his home office, according to court documents.
Hayes was arrested and charged with 3 counts of possession of child pornography. His initial court hearing is scheduled for February 9. Bail was set at $25,000 cash.
Hayes, a local businessman, was listed as the chairman of the Jones County GOP in 2020. As of Thursday, his name was scrubbed from the South Dakota Republican Party website. The state GOP Executive Director Madison Sheahan, told the Argus Leader that the party’s relationship with Hayes and his businesses was “terminated.”
[Image: Twitter /Keloland News]
