Alachua Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison & 8 Years Sex Offender Probation for Possessing Files of Sex Offenses Against Children on Kik

Editor’s Notes: This article was briefly deleted three minutes after publishing and re-published due to errors in the sentencing. Court documents show three out of four of the counts O’Steen was sentenced to five years in prison for are consecutive, meaning he serves one after the other, and it was mistakenly reported all counts were concurrent, which would’ve been five years. O’Steen’s probation sentence was corrected from five to eight years. It was mistakenly reported the FDLE deleted their press release published on O’Steen after his arrest due to their Facebook post promoting it containing a dead link that directs users to a URL not found page.

On October 9, Jonathan Ellis O’Steen, 35, was sentenced to 15 years in prison followed by eight years of sex offender probation following a no contest plea and conviction of seven counts of obscene material possession and one count of using a two way communication device to commit a felony.

Facing a maximum sentence of 40 years, O’Steen took a plea deal that was accepted by Judge James Colaw. 

O’Steen was arrested in December 2024 following an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) that found that he had files showing the sexual abuse of children on his Kik account which he shared. 

Following O’Steen’s arrest, the FDLE published a press release on their investigation into him, which states the following:

The FDLE announces the arrest of Jonathan Ellis O’Steen, 34, of Alachua, on seven counts of possession of child sexual abuse material and one count of using a two-way communication device to commit a felony. The arrest is the result of FDLE’s statewide initiative to locate and arrest criminals sharing files depicting the sexual abuse of children. 

FDLE’s investigation started when agents received a cybertip about a Kik user sharing child sexual exploitation files. The investigation identified O’Steen as the account holder. Additional files depicting the sexual abuse of children in O’Steen’s accounts were discovered during the investigation.

O’Steen was arrested by the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office on FDLE’s arrest warrant. He was booked into the Alachua County Jail on Dec. 9. The case will be prosecuted by Attorney General Ashley Moody’s Office of Statewide Prosecution.

The investigation was conducted by FDLE’s Jacksonville cybercrime unit and remains active.