Christian Pastor Arrested on Child Porn Charges in Florida

A Christian pastor was arrested in Florida on Friday on charges of buying child pornography online, according to local law enforcement.

The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said that Jonathan Edward Elwing, a 43-year old senior pastor of Palm View Baptist Church in Palmetto, Florida, was charged with four counts of possession of child sexual abuse images.

The arrest comes after detectives with the sheriff’s office received information on Thursday that Elwing used cryptocurrency to make an online purchase of the images.

According to the sheriff’s office’s press release, when authorities executed a search warrant on Friday at Elwing’s home and church, deputies said they found four “sexually explicit photos of children” on his cellphone.

Before Elwing was arrested, he resigned from his job, the sheriff’s office’s press release said. Elwing is now being held at the Manatee County Jail without bond.

While the investigation is still ongoing, the sheriff’s office asks anyone with information about crimes that may involve Elwing to call them at (941) 747-3011, or to remain anonymous and to be eligible for a cash reward, contact Manatee County Crime Stoppers at (866) 634-8477 (TIPS) or online on the Crime Stoppers website.

Newsweek has reached out to the Manatee County Sheriff’s office via email for comment.

This is not the first time a pastor has been connected to charges involving child pornography.

In April 2023, a Florida youth pastor stood accused of using church Wi-fi to access child pornography, following a nearly yearlong investigation by police spurred by an online tip.

Edward Wilds III of Palatka, Florida, was arrested and charged with “possession of child pornography and using a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony” by the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, according to a report from the Miami Herald. He allegedly stayed behind after a Wednesday night service at the Palatka Baptist Temple sometime last spring and used the church’s internet connection to download child sexual material, with tens of thousands of such images being found on devices associated with him over the course of the investigation.

“Detectives were alerted to possible distribution of child pornography through a cyber-tip from a social media site on May 22, 2022,” the sheriff’s office stated in an official announcement. “Detectives discovered [that Wilds] had downloaded pornography images from Palatka Baptist Temple’s Wi-Fi following a Wednesday evening service. In total 54,000 images were discovered on accounts and devices associated with Wilds. The majority of the images were pornographic… Detectives discovered messaging conversations where Wilds was asked by another user for images of children between the ages of 14-16 years old. He sent 42 images.”

Wilds also worked as a teacher at the nearby Middleton-Burney Elementary School until investigators informed the Putnam County School District of his arrest, at which point he was “suspended and removed.”