37-year-old Philip Scott Harris of Aberdeen, North Carolina (in Moore County) has been arrested on sex offense charges out of Lincoln and Cleveland counties. In Cleveland County, Harris was charged with four counts of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, failure to report an address change as a sex offender, and failure to report new online identifiers as a sex offender. Lincoln County Detectives charged Harris with four counts of first-degree sexual exploitation of a minor.

On November 28 of last year, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office received information regarding the sexual exploitation of a child. The Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office opened an investigation into the case in early 2022 when pornographic recordings of a minor were discovered on accounts belonging to Philip Scott Harris. During the Cleveland County investigation, Detectives learned that the recordings were produced at a residence in Lincoln County where the defendant previously lived.

Harris was arrested in Moore County on March 19 of this year. He is being held under an $80,000 secured bond on the Cleveland and Lincoln county charges. Harris was scheduled to appear in District Court on March 28 in Lincoln County and on April 4 in Cleveland County.