Depravity indicted: Former Athens resident charged in child exploitation case

Justin Carleton Coates

By Joe Johnson

A man is facing felony charges for creating or possessing disturbing images of children being sexually exploited in unimaginable ways.

Court records show that 40-year-old Justin Carleton Coates was arrested in August 2021 by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation for images found in his devices that depict naked boys and girls bound with restraints, being urinated on, having sexual contact with animals, and in similarly appalling situations.

A grand jury on Tuesday charged Coates with five counts of sexual exploitation of children, according to the indictment filed Tuesday in Clarke County Superior Court.

The charges stem from an investigation by the The Georgia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, to which the Athens-Clarke County Police Department belongs.

Arrest warrants in the case had been secured by an agent with the GBI’s Child Exploitation and Computer Crimes Unit.

When taken into custody, Coates was detained for several weeks at the county jail before he was bailed out by his mother.

At the time of his arrest he was living on Peabody Street in Athens, but now resides with his mother in Alpharetta.

He is scheduled to be arraigned on December 16.