‘It was a hack’: Charleston judge facing child sex charges claims innocence

CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) — A suspended Charleston County judge charged with possessing child sex abuse materials maintains his innocence and says he was hacked in newly released jailhouse calls.

James B. Gosnell Jr., 68, was arrested on Sept. 16 and accused of possession of child sexual abuse material, according to the United States Department of Justice.

Federal investigators allege that Gosnell not only possessed a USB flash drive with hundreds of videos of child sex abuse material, but evidence also shows that Gosnell claimed to have abused children in his West Ashley neighborhood.

The calls mentioned come from Gosnell’s time inside the Charleston County Jail from his arrest on September 16 until September 26. It took months to receive the calls through a public records request.

In hours of phone calls, Gosnell tried to limit any discussion of his case, but he did tell loved ones he may be able to fight the graphic charges against him.

“There is a possibility; they are telling me this is a good possibility, that I can be out of all of this, but it’s going to take a couple of weeks to get me out of it,” Gosnell said.

“It was b***t is what it was. It was a hack,” Gosnell said. “It’s nerve-racking to me right now because I had to resign my position.”

“We have a pretty good argument because we know what happened,” Gosnell said. “And once they hear that, we feel very comfortable that things are going to go by the wayside. But getting it there is a slow process.”

“We feel good about our case because we know what I didn’t do, we know what I did do,” Gosnell said.

Despite what Gosnell said on the calls, now almost four months later, he is still behind bars.

Gosnell also spoke a lot about his dog and who is taking care of him, all while he tried to sell most everything he owned from behind bars.

“We’re going to put the house on the market eventually and once we do that, all the money’s going to be put into an account and depending on how well I come out of this, I’ll either use the money to reestablish a life somewhere else or I’ll end up leaving the money there,” Gosnell said.

“Nobody’s doing anything with the big prints, the Confederate prints that are over there,” Gosnell said. “I haven’t given anybody the reason at this time to take anything like that.”

Gosnell was moved to the Williamsburg County Jail a few days after the calls were recorded in Charleston. Live 5 Investigates also requested his jailhouse calls from Williamsburg, but that request was denied.