A Freeport, Illinois, man who has spent decades performing as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator was arrested Friday on charges related to producing a child pornography video, according to officials.
Authorities also charged George Buss, 63, with patronizing a prostitute following a six-month investigation that began in February, according to a police news release. Buss, who police said was arrested at his home, had been scheduled to be part of an annual reenactment of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate in Freeport on Saturday, according to an event organizer.
Tyler Dotson, 22, was charged in the same investigation with two separate counts of disseminating a child pornography video and prostitution, according to police.
Buss was ordered held on $200,000 bond and was being held Monday in the Stephenson County Jail, according to jail records. He appeared in court Monday and was set to appear in court again Sept. 10, according to court records.
"The crimes George Buss stands accused of are heinous," state Rep. Andrew Chesney, R-Freeport, said in a statement.
"I denounce him in the strongest of terms. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. May their voices be heard and may justice be quickly served."
Buss has traveled around the country impersonating Lincoln, including reenactments of the Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. In 1994, a series of reenactments including Buss, who started impersonating Lincoln about 30 years ago, was televised on C-SPAN.
Buss had been scheduled to be part of the annual debate reenactment that had been set for Saturday online, according to an email from the secretary of Freeport's Lincoln-Douglas Society, Edward Finch.
