Chattanooga man who was sheriff’s deputy gets 25 years for child exploitation

A Tennessee man who worked as a sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for producing child sexual abuse material after posing online as a teenage boy to exploit children across the country, the Justice Department announced.

Johnathan Nathaniel Allen, 27, of Chattanooga, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sherri A. Lydon, according to the department. He will serve 15 years of court-ordered supervision after his release, and the department noted there is no parole in the federal system. Allen was also ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution to a victim and $4,000 to a victim services fund, and he must register as a sex offender.

The investigation revealed that Allen caused eight children to produce child sexual abuse material by posing as a 14-year-old boy named “Josh.” The department said he did so while serving as a sheriff’s deputy in Tennessee, where he had worked since 2021.

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The investigation began when a South Carolina father found concerning text messages on his 13-year-old daughter’s phone and called police. The York County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI determined Allen was using the fake identity on internet accounts to exploit minors, according to the Justice Department.

The department said Allen used Instagram, Reddit, the messaging platform TextMe and the gaming platform Roblox to target and recruit children. He pressured minors to produce explicit material, manipulated them by telling them he loved them and was proud of them, and threatened to share one child’s intimate images if she refused to communicate with him.

One minor rejected his request for sexual content eight times before Allen persuaded her to speak with him by phone using a virtual TextMe number. During that call, he pressured her into producing child sexual abuse material, the department said.

Agents who searched Allen’s home recovered a phone containing Reddit and TextMe accounts, the “Josh” identity and child sexual abuse material, the department said. The phone also held communications with the South Carolina minor, including calls made after York County had seized her phone. Agents found clothing in Allen’s bedroom matching what “Josh” wore in explicit images sent to a minor, and a photo posted by “Josh” on Reddit showed Allen at a younger age, according to the release. One father recovered deleted content and gave it to law enforcement.

Confirmed victims lived in South Carolina, Georgia, Kansas, Missouri and New York, and some were as young as sixth grade.

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“This defendant was sworn to serve and protect, instead he deceived and exploited,” said U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling for the District of South Carolina.

FBI Columbia Special Agent in Charge Anish Shukla said the defendant “went to vile lengths to pretend to be someone he was not.” York County Sheriff Tony Breeden praised investigators for “hunting these predators down.”

The case was brought under Project Safe Childhood, a Justice Department initiative launched in May 2006 to locate, apprehend and prosecute people who exploit children online. The FBI Columbia Field Office and the York County Sheriff’s Office investigated, with help from Homeland Security Investigations and the Hamilton County, Tennessee, Sheriff’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Elliott B. Daniels prosecuted the case.

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