A Lebanon man was arrested Monday evening, April 7, on multiple sex charges involving minors, Linn County Sheriff Michelle Duncan reported Tuesday.
According to Duncan, deputies arrested Burl Hilburn, 57, of Lebanon, after an investigation that lasted nearly a month.
Hillburn was lodged at Linn County Jail on two counts of first-degree online sexual corruption of a minor and two counts of luring a minor, Duncan said.
On March 11, 2025, the Linn County Sheriff’s Office received a report from a social media personality that Hilburn was communicating with the social media personality, who was posing as an underage male. The social media personality, whom Duncan did not identify, went to Hilburn’s home and caused a disturbance with family members, video recording people at the residence, she said.
The social media personality then called the Linn County Sheriff’s Office for help relating to the disturbance.
Deputies responded to the location, learned Hilburn was not home, and spoke with the social media personality to obtain details. The social media personality would not fully cooperate with deputies, who requested detailed information on the conversations with Hilburn.
The social media personality would only send deputies emails of certain screenshots allegedly communicated between the personality and Hilburn, and denied deputies access to download the personality’s phone, Duncan said.
“Downloading the phone was important to validate messages, including receiver and sender information, and dates that the messages were sent, which are all important to the investigation and the determination of which crimes to charge, how many charges, and that the crimes fall within the statute of limitations,” Duncan said in a statement.
She said that, due to a lack of cooperation from the social media personality, deputies investigated the incident in a way to re-establish what messages had been sent by Hilburn and the social media personality through search warrants and interviews.
A search warrant was served on Hilburn’s phone, which had to be manually searched for the validated evidence needed for the case. After days of filtering through information, deputies were able to confirm Hilburn had sent sexually explicit texts and photographs to a person he believed to be a 14-year-old boy, Duncan said.
When deputies re-contacted Hilburn, they learned the same social media personality had continued to send harassing messages to Hilburn and his family while deputies were building their investigation, Duncan said.
Deputies had been in contact with the social media personality during the investigative process and that person was aware of the continued investigation being conducted, Duncan said..
Deputies are continuing to follow up with information obtained in search warrants to identify any additional crimes or victims, she said.
Duncan said her department and surrounding agencies have seen an increase in reports of similar private citizens (cyber-vigilantes) who conduct undercover online operations to “catch” potential predators who target minors to entice them into illegal sex acts, then call in law enforcement so they can video the arrest.
“Unfortunately, many of these private citizens (cyber-vigilantes) are more focused on making their videos and sensationalizing the encounter for their own attention, social media presence and sometimes money earned from their sites, and/or channels, than ensuring a proper investigation is conducted and an arrest is made safely,” she said. “Without training, even well-meaning citizens can not only endanger themselves, but also the general public, or responding law enforcement during these encounters.
“Even locally, we have even seen instances where actual minors are being sent to meet an alleged predator in person as “bait” or the private citizen that conducted their own investigation causing disturbances with others not involved in the crime or the suspect themselves.”
Duncan said her office takes such reports seriously and “will always” investigate tips of anyone preying on children. We ask that once the tip is given, let us conduct a thorough investigation. “Our goal is to collect all evidence of all crimes being committed, not just the ones being initially reported,” she said. “Often, this takes time to locate other evidence, not readily available, on these private citizen operations, such as other computers, phones, tablets, etc. This additional evidence may also lead to other real child victims that can be identified and connected to victim advocacy services, counseling, or other services to help them.
“Unlike some of these private citizens who call law enforcement at the last minute, our deputies are concerned about much more than wanting to just get a sensationalized moment on camera for social media.”