A Freeport, Illinois, man who has spent decades performing as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator was arrested on Friday on charges related to producing a child pornography video, according to officials.
Authorities also charged George Buss, 63, with patronising 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 re-enactment of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debate in Freeport on Saturday, according to an event organiser.
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 dollars bond and was being held Monday in the Stephenson County Jail, according to jail records.
He appeared in court on 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 Representative Andrew Chesney, Republican of Freeport.
“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,” he said in a statement.
Buss has traveled around the country impersonating Lincoln including re-enactments of the Gettysburg Address at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania.
In 1994, a series of re-enactments 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 re-enactment that had been set for Saturday online, according to an email from the secretary of Freeport’s Lincoln-Douglas Society, Edward Finch.
