JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A convicted child sex offender from Jacksonville has been sentenced to 50 years in federal prison.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors say 63-year-old Kevin John Merritt produced videos and photos showing the sexual abuse of a child.<\/p>\n
Merritt was arrested in March 2023 after investigators linked him to a Facebook account that shared child exploitation material.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n He had already been convicted in 2011 for possessing child sex abuse images and was serving a 30-year supervised release term.<\/p>\n The case began after a CyberTipline report flagged files sent through Facebook Messenger in September 2022. <\/p>\n Detectives identified Merritt as the user behind the account.<\/p>\n When officers searched his home, they seized his phone and found images and videos of an identified child being abused. <\/p>\n In two of the videos, Merritt\u2019s hand could be seen, according to investigators.<\/p>\n The Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office and the FBI investigated. The case was prosecuted under Project Safe Childhood, a federal program targeting child exploitation.<\/p>\n Action News has been following this case since 2023. Read our past stories below:<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A convicted child sex offender from Jacksonville has been sentenced to 50 years in federal…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":180055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,29664,40323,281,4219,3188,723,10767,7310,8142,3228,70653,101750,7088,33990,10074,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,55486],"class_list":{"0":"post-180054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-concept","10":"tag-copy-space","11":"tag-court","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-fl","14":"tag-florida","15":"tag-gavel","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-justice","18":"tag-law","19":"tag-law-book","20":"tag-leaning","21":"tag-lot","22":"tag-row","23":"tag-table","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-united-states-of-america","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","28":"tag-us","29":"tag-usa","30":"tag-vintage"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115101472590380064","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}