In an ongoing investigation, a former UNC employee was arrested Monday night and charged with 47 counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.
Charles Hitlin, a former manager in the information technology department at UNC’s Gillings School of Global Public Health, was taken into custody at his Pittsboro home after UNC’s Department of Public Safety issued multiple warrants for his arrest.
DPS spokesman Randy Young said Chatham County officers made the arrest Monday after seeing the warrants. Hitlin was then placed on $250,000 secured bond and held overnight in Chatham County jail.
He will appear at the Orange County courthouse in Hillsborough at 2 p.m. today.
Hitlin was initially arrested in November after campus police officers — following a warrant for suspicious computer activity — discovered a 9 mm pistol in his office on campus.
He was arrested again in December and charged with two counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, separate from the 47 counts involved in Monday’s arrest.
Bail was set at $65,000 for those charges. He had posted bond of $10,000 for the initial firearm charge.
The warrant that led to the December arrest stated that an individual or individuals, who gave the impression of being female, used Hitlin’s work computer to have discussions involving sexual intercourse in a chat room with minors as young as 12 years old.
According to the warrant, Detective Mike Deaton of the Morrisville Police Department had several undercover interactions in the chat room with a user operating under the name “amyinnc.”
