Feds capture man charged in Minnesota with luring men into sexually exploiting young children

Law enforcement has captured a man charged with connecting with other men virtually — and at times posing as a woman — and having them sexually exploit the youngest of children.

William Guy Amick III, 36, was arrested Tuesday in Milan, Mich., about 40 miles southwest of Detroit, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) announced.

Members of the Detroit Fugitive Apprehension Team had information that Amick was staying with a friend at an apartment in Milan, said U.S. Marshals Service spokesman Farris Wooton.

“A maintenance man saw him in Apartment 1,” Wooton said. The officers “knocked and announced themselves” and after getting no reply used the keys to enter, the spokesman said.

“They found Amick hiding in a back bedroom closet,” he said. “They took him into custody without incident.”

Amick, of suburban Pittsburgh, remained held Thursday morning without bail in the Washtenaw County Jail pending efforts by Minnesota officials to have him extradited to Fillmore County.

On April 18, Amick was charged in District Court with 13 counts of child sexual abuse material, including using minors in a sexual performance, soliciting a child to engage in sexual conduct and possession of pornographic work involving a minor.

The many incidents involved male and female victims from newborns to 7 years old, according to the charges.

Amick committed many of these crimes while living in the southern Minnesota communities of Mabel and Rushford for about two years until May 2023, the charges said.

He often has posed as a woman using artificial intelligence when interacting with men online to create material of the men sexually abusing their own children, the BCA added.

The BCA said that tips to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in 2021 and 2022 alerted the agency to Amick and his suspected sexual exploitation of children.

According to the charges:

In May 2023, the Fillmore County Sheriff’s Office tracked Amick to a home in Rushford, where he lived for nearly two years until moving out.

The BCA located two electronic devices that Amick left behind and found they held more than 200 videos of Amick on chats over a three-month span with a man in Washington state and a girl aged 6 or 7. During the chats, Amick modified his voice and appearance using artificial intelligence to portray a woman he called Alice, who directed the man to sexually abuse the girl. Amick recorded the abuse.

The man, John Thompson, has been arrested and charged in Washington state. The BCA added that investigators continue trying to identify the other men tied to Amick.

Amick is wanted in Pennsylvania for a case that is similar in nature.

Investigators believe Amick received payments from people who supported his online activities, but financial supporters may not have known his true identity or have been aware of his criminal activity, according to the BCA.