Hayesville Man Charged With 20 Counts Related To Child Pornography

Clay County Investigator Steven Smith received information from the North Carolina Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (NCICAC) concerning a “Cybertip” for an area resident

who was reportedly distributing and in possession of child pornography. Investigator Smith is an active member of the NCICAC. The online platform “Discord” reported on 05/18/25 that full body images of young children, in a sexual setting, had been uploaded. An IP address and phone number associated with this activity was traced to Finnian Lesko Griswold, 23 years of age from Hayesville.

Investigator Smith and Clay County Chief Joe Wood traveled to Griswold’s residence in Hayesville and met with him. Griswold admitted having child pornography on his cell phone as well as his desk-top computer, both of which were seized as evidence. A search warrant for Griswold’s cell phone and desk-top computer was issued by Superior Court Judge Tessa Sellers. The cell phone was searched by Investigator Smith using a complex Cellebrite hardware system for which Investigator Smith was a trained certified physical operator and analyst. Investigator Smith was able to extract and save 55.7 gigabytes of data as evidence using the Cellebrite system. The desktop computer was manually searched as directed by Judge Sellers.

A total of 16 child pornography related images and videos from the two devices were found. These depicted both pubescent and pre-pubescent females ranging from approximately 5 years of age to approximately 15 years of age. After a consultation with the District Attorney’s Office, Griswold was arrested and charged with 20 felony counts relating to child pornography and issued a $720,000 secured bond for his release.