Johnathan Nathaniel Allen

Johnathan Nathaniel Allen, a 27-year-old man from Chattanooga, Tennessee who had been a county sheriff's deputy since 2021, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for producing child sexual abuse material. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina, Allen used the social media platforms Instagram and Reddit, the messaging platform TextMe and the gaming platform Roblox to target and recruit children, posing as a 14-year-old boy named Josh. The Office said the investigation began when a father in South Carolina found concerning text messages on his daughter's phone and called the police; the York County Sheriff's Office and the FBI then determined that Allen was the person behind the Josh identity. The Office said Allen caused eight children from across the country to produce child sexual abuse material. A May 2026 plea release said that in September 2024 Allen used Reddit and TextMe to contact one of them, and that on Reddit he navigated to a forum that referenced teenagers in its title, started a conversation and then moved it to text messages using a virtual number. Agents searched his home and recovered a phone with Reddit, TextMe and the Josh identity, and the Office said a picture shared on Reddit under that identity was a picture of Allen when he was younger. Allen pleaded guilty, as announced by the Office on May 13, 2026. U.S. District Judge Sherri A. Lydon sentenced him to 25 years in prison followed by a 15-year term of court-ordered supervision. He was ordered to pay $3,000 in restitution to the victim plus $4,000 to a victim services fund, and must register as a sex offender. The case was investigated by the FBI and the York County Sheriff's Office with Homeland Security Investigations and the Hamilton County, Tennessee Sheriff's Office. NewsChannel 9 and the Tega Cay Sun, both local outlets, reported the Reddit use, the plea and the sentence.