Local man arrested after nude photo surfaces

A Lebanon man is accused of sending an explicit photo of himself to a minor after members of an online group confronted him at his home.

Jimmy Keeler, 63, sent a photo of his genitals via the internet to someone he believed was a 15-year-old girl on March 9, according to a probable cause affidavit. The recipient was not a teenager, but an adult named Christopher Abercrombie, according to court records.

Abercrombie and Donald Clifford are members of EPIC, Exposing Predators of Innocent Children, a private group that poses as minors online and confronts adults they say solicit minors for sex.

Abercrombie posed as a minor online with Keeler and engaged in suggestive messaging with him before Keeler sent the photo, according to the affidavit.

Keeler never set up a meeting with the fictitious girl, police reported. Instead, Abercrombie tracked Keeler down to his Lebanon home and he and Clifford visited Keeler and his wife in their driveway on March 14, according to the affidavit.

Clifford videoed and livestreamed the encounters online while Abercrombie confronted the couple with the photo and messages he said Keeler sent him. Keeler told the men to leave almost immediately, but they did not.

Abercrombie raised his voice with the couple and asked Keeler’s wife if she knew he was attracted to minors. She went back into the house, and Keeler followed shortly after, threatening to commit suicide by shooting himself, police reported.

His wife called police for help, but so did Abercrombie. Medics took Keeler to the St. Vincent Stress Center in Indianapolis. Lebanon Police questioned Abercrombie and Clifford.

After 23 years of marriage, Keeler’s wife filed for divorce March 25, citing “an irretrievable breakdown in their marriage.”

Keeler was charged May 10 with one count of attempted dissemination of matter harmful to a minor, a level 6 felony. He was arrested Thursday and bonded out of the Boone County Jail on Saturday.

His initial hearing is scheduled for May 23 before Boone Circuit Court Judge Lori Schein.

The Lebanon Police Department handed the investigation over to CASE, the Boone County Child Abuse and Sexual Exploitation Task Force.