Christian pastor arrested in Florida on child pornography charges

A Christian pastor was arrested in Florida on Friday on suspicion of purchasing child pornography online, local law enforcement officials said.

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

The arrest came after detectives from the sheriff’s office received information Thursday that Elwing had used cryptocurrency to purchase the images online.

According to a press release from the sheriff’s office, officers searched Elwing’s home and church on Friday and found four “sexually explicit photographs of children” on his cellphone.

Before Elwing was arrested, he quit his job, the sheriff’s office said in a news release. Elwing is currently being held without bail in the Manatee County Jail.

While the investigation is ongoing, the Sheriff’s Office is asking anyone with information about crimes in which Elwing may be involved to call them at (941) 747-3011 or, to remain anonymous and be eligible for a cash reward, contact Manatee County Crime Stoppers at (866) 634-8477 (TIPS) or online through the Crime Stoppers website.

Newsweek has emailed the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office for comment.

This is not the first time a pastor has been charged with child pornography.

In April 2023, a Florida youth pastor was accused of using the church’s Wi-Fi to access child pornography. The police investigation lasted nearly a year and was based on an online tip.

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

“Investigators were alerted to the possible distribution of child pornography on May 22, 2022 through a cyber tip from a social media site,” the sheriff’s office said in an official statement. “Investigators determined that (Wilds) had downloaded pornographic images from the Palatka Baptist Temple’s Wi-Fi following a Wednesday night service. A total of 54,000 images were discovered on accounts and devices associated with Wilds. Most of the images were pornographic… Investigators discovered message conversations in which Wilds was asked by another user for images of children between the ages of 14 and 16. He sent 42 images.”

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