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A highly-respected Florida pastor could face the death penalty after his sensational arrest for allegedly photographing himself raping a very young girl, DailyMail.com can reveal.
Baptist preacher Jonathan Elwing, 43, has a slew of horrific child sex charges against him, including two capital felony raps for sexual battery of a minor.
His arrest has rocked the congregation and deacons at vibrant Palm View Baptist Church in Palmetto, Florida, where he had been senior pastor for five years.
The father of four was initially charged with four counts of possessing sickening child porn photos after cops were tipped off by a crypto-currency company that he had purchased them off the dark web.
However, a forensic trawl through his cellphone later also discovered a private photo vault app hiding at least 14 pictures of him horrifically sexually abusing the young girl, according to his arrest report.
And DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal Elwing now faces up to 25 charges relating to child pornography and child sex as Manatee County Sheriff’s Office detectives continue to trawl through his electronic devices.
Elwing’s devastated wife Krystal, 40, this week put on a brave face at the neat ranch-style home she shared with the preacher, telling DailyMail.com: ‘I’ve been through too much.’
Bearded Elwing – previously an associate pastor at a congregation within the celebrity-favorite Hillsong Church according to his LinkedIn page – faces a minimum sentence of life without parole if convicted.
But prosecutors could also press for the death penalty under a 2023 Florida law which allows for the ultimate sentence for sexual battery of a child under the age of 12. Juries in Florida need just eight of the panel of 12 to agree to execution.
Chillingly, DailyMail.com can confirm detectives found eight covert-style cameras in Elwing’s office at the church, whose building links with Educational Harbor private Christian school – where Krystal is a teacher.
Another two were at the couple’s home. None of them were in position.
Elwing, dubbed ‘a monster’ by Manatee County Sheriff Rick Wells, is currently held without bond at Manatee County Jail in Palmetto. He was indicted by a grand jury on July 10 on sexual battery of a child.
Wife Krystal ‘was devastated when she was made aware of what was going on’, sheriff’s office information officer Randy Warren told DailyMail.com exclusively.
‘I don’t know how much she maybe suspected something was wrong. But everyone involved here has said how much she was surprised and devastated.’
The pastor was facing two capital sexual battery charges and six counts each of producing and processing child sexual abuse material after the second trawl of his devices was made.
But Warren revealed: ‘With everything we’ve collected in the search for additional images, we’re going to have a final number of up to 25 charges. We’ve got production of child pornography, capital sexual battery and lewd and lascivious molestation.’
‘Elwing was living a double life in not being the person people thought he was. It’s been devastating also for that church, for that community, for family, for friends.
‘It creates a lot of anger when people they realize they put a lot of trust in, who they respected, turn out to be someone completely different.’
Referring to Elwing’s swift arrest, he added: ‘We are thankful that we are looking at just one victim of capital sexual battery, although of course what happened to that victim is a tragedy.’
Of the covert cameras, Warren said: ‘We know that he was using devices to capture images and video, but we didn’t find any of these actually inside the church or elsewhere, apart from in his office and home – not in any common areas such as bathrooms.’
Elwing describes himself on the profile on X, formerly Twitter, as: ‘Husband, Father, Child of God. Serving Christ as a Minister of His Gospel.’
His arrest report accuses him of committing the alleged offenses from April 26 this year. The pastor, who began preaching as an associate in Punta Gorda, Florida, in 2003, initially told detectives there was no porn on his devices.
But his position began to unravel as detectives questioned him more closely.
He admitted he ‘would sometimes purchase adult pornography from a third-party person,’ but then claimed that ‘it was possible that child pornography would be part of the purchase, without his knowledge’.
Elwing maintained he didn’t look at child porn and ‘would delete anything he considered to be child porn when he was looking at adult material’.
However at a second interview, he was confronted by four purchased images on his Google Pixel 7 Pro phone showing different children aged between four and seven being seriously sexually abused.
Four days later detectives uncovered six child sex images involving Elwing, according to the report. The first ‘showed Jonathan’s face’ and the child was wearing ‘a distinct shirt that had a picture of a cartoon giraffe and writing on the side of the giraffe’.
The report said Elwing photographed himself penetrating the child and the images were taken on April 26 this year between 4.17pm and 4.21pm local time.
Another image showed the same child wearing a white shirt ‘and no other clothing. The child is only visible from the shoulders to her knees as she is lying down on her stomach on a blue colored blanket’.
Elwing is ‘observed attempting to penetrate the child’s vagina and (his penis) is pressing against her buttock and vagina’.
In other pictures, Elwing positions the child so as to obscenely display and photograph her intimate areas, according to the report. In one picture she is seen just from her waist to her knees.
Sheriff Wells said after Elwing’s arrest: ‘I can’t stress this enough. This is a monster.
‘This is a man who went to great lengths to hide his true identity. To use whatever resources he could to feed the deviant behavior that he has.
‘I feel really bad for his family. I feel bad for the congregation at Palm View Baptist Church. He went into that church professing to be a man of God, but he’s really nothing more than a liar and a sex predator.’
slippery slope breh. in 20 years they could be part of LGBT+
they not runining round having sex/raping midgets and dwarfs, these are kids
