42-year-old Mark Minor was charged with sex offender registration violation 3rd offense or more and aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor after Facebook, Inc. informed MNPD he had uploaded an image of a child being raped on his Messenger.
On March 8th, Facebook, Incorporated sent a CyberTip to Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) in regard to a sexual image of a minor. The profile that uploaded the image, facebook.com/mark.minor.522 was found to be operated by registered sex offender Mark Minor. The officer reviewed a picture depicting a 3 to 5-year-old girl being vaginally raped by an adult man. The image had been transmitted via Facebook Messenger. The Messenger logs where the picture was exchanged showed that Minor contacted his friend with a message saying, “I bet u still look at ur kiddie pics.” The friend responded with, “… I do but, I’m more careful at what I do.” Then he asked his friend for his number and said that he sent him a few texts on his phone.
A search warrant executed to Facebook showed that the profile was authenticated using a phone number and email address registered to Mark Minor’s Sprint phone. Sprint was subpoenaed to confirm the phone that was used to send the message was indeed Minor’s and verified his address at a discipleship house located at 103 Harris Street.
Under the requirements of his sex offender registration, Minor is required to report any internet handle or email address he intends to use within three days. The email address and phone number obtained by police during the investigation were both disclosed by Minor. They were confirmed on the MNPD Sex Offender registry by Detective David Elliot prior to the picture being sent on February 4th and then by Detective Maria Sexton after the picture was sent on March 24th. Neither of those times did he report that he had the Facebook account in which the picture was sent from.
Mark Minor has an extensive record of sexual offenses including being charged with rape of child, aggravated sexual battery – victim under 13, and criminal trespass. He’s also been convicted of attempted rape, indecent exposure and multiple counts of both exploitation of a minor and sexual offender registration violations.
On September 10th, Mark Minor was arrested and charged with sex offender registration violation 3rd time or more and aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor. He is currently jailed in lieu of a $25,000 bond.
