Source: US FBI
Jacksonville, Florida – United States Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announces the return of an indictment charging Jerry Alexander Cobb (37, Jacksonville) with using his cellphone and the internet to attempt to entice a 13-year-old child to engage in sexual activity. If convicted, Cobb faces a minimum penalty of 10 years, and up to life, in federal prison and a potential lifetime term of supervised release. On August 12, 2025, Cobb was ordered detained pending trial in this case.
According to court documents, between July 18 and August 1, 2025, an FBI agent (“UC”) in Jacksonville was conducting an undercover operation on an online social media application (“app”) to identify adults who were seeking to make online contact with and engage in sexual activity with children. During this same timeframe, UC and app user “Jerry” exchanged several private online messages on the app and text messages. After UC advised “Jerry” that “she” was 13 years old, “Jerry” texted, “[w]e can be friends” and repeatedly asked for the location of the “child’s” residence, whether the “child” could “sneak out at night,” and if “she” was a “virgin.”
On July 30, 2025, “Jerry” told the “child” that they should meet and texted, “[y]ou want to just get a hotel room?” “Jerry,” who was subsequently identified as Cobb, suggested that they engage in sexual activity in the hotel room and promised that he would bring and use a condom. On August 1, 2025, Cobb asked the “child” to send him an explicit photo of herself, and the two made plans to meet for sexual activity in Jacksonville later that day.
On the evening of August 1, 2025, Cobb traveled to the location where he intended to meet the purported 13-year-old “child” for sex. He was immediately arrested by FBI agents.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.
It is another case brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify, rescue, and seek justice for child victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.