Gibsonville man arrested in child sexual exploitation investigation, bond set at $5 million

A Gibsonville man was taken into custody after investigators said a cybertip-led probe uncovered child sexual exploitation material, and the sheriff’s office set bond at $5 million.

Donavan Levar Summers, 28, was arrested May 12 and charged with three counts of felony third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. He was being held at the Guilford County Detention Center in Greensboro on a $5,000,000 secured bond and is due in court July 16.

The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office said the case began July 3, 2024, after a cybertip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Detectives later received two additional cybertips in the same investigation before serving a search warrant at a home on West Steele Street in Gibsonville.

The timeline shows how these cases can build slowly. Rather than a single arrest tied to one event, investigators spent months collecting digital evidence and following multiple reports before moving in on the Gibsonville address. FOX8 reported that Summers was already on the Guilford County Sex Offender Registry when the arrest was made.

Under North Carolina law, third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor applies when a person knowingly possesses material containing a visual representation of a minor engaging in sexual activity. That statute is used in cases involving digital images or files, which is why this case is being framed around online exploitation material rather than allegations of physical contact.

For parents and caregivers in Guilford County, the route for reporting concerns starts with the same system that helped launch this investigation. NCMEC’s CyberTipline is the nation’s centralized reporting system for online child sexual exploitation, and NCMEC says staff review each tip and route it to the appropriate law-enforcement agency for possible investigation. That process can generate more than one tip in a single case, as it did here, and those follow-up reports can extend an investigation over time.

The case now moves into the court system, where prosecutors will have to prove the felony charges beyond a reasonable doubt. The $5 million secured bond signals how seriously authorities are treating the allegations as the criminal case proceeds through Guilford County Superior Court.