{"id":56420,"date":"2025-07-11T08:52:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/56420\/"},"modified":"2025-07-11T08:52:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T08:52:13","slug":"former-jacksonville-dance-instructor-arrested-accused-of-having-sex-with-a-teenager-action-news-jax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/56420\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Jacksonville dance instructor arrested, accused of having sex with a teenager \u2013 Action News Jax"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A former Jacksonville dance instructor is behind bars after allegedly having sexual relations with a teenager.<\/p>\n

34-year-old Samuel Penalba, formerly employed at A Social Affair Dance Studio, was arrested by the Jacksonville Sheriff\u2019s Office on July 7 and charged with five counts of unlawful sexual activity with a child and possession of child pornography.<\/p>\n

According to JSO, their Special Assault Unit began its investigation on July 1 after receiving a complaint.<\/p>\n

>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n

JSO said investigators determined that Penalba had engaged in sexual activity with the victim multiple times in his car. Explicit photos and videos were reportedly found, matching the victim\u2019s statements. <\/p>\n

Police say Penalba deleted evidence from his cell phone, which led to an additional felony charge for tampering.<\/p>\n

[DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n

This is the first known investigation involving Penalba and unlawful sexual activity, according to JSO. The agency said he resigned from his position at the dance studio.<\/p>\n

Action News Jax reached out to the owner, Larry Audije, who told us Penalba was actually fired on July 1st, for reasons unrelated to the sex crime charges.<\/p>\n

In an email, he stated, \u201cThe studio manager & I fired Samuel Penalba for financial felony fraud regarding one of our students.\u201d <\/p>\n

Penalba has not been arrested or charged in relation to this separate allegation, although the owner says they plan to press charges \u201cto the fullest extent.\u201d<\/p>\n

Penalba is due to be arraigned on July 30, according to court records.<\/p>\n

[SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n

Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A former Jacksonville dance instructor is behind bars after allegedly having sexual relations with a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":56421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[41353,7320,5229,7323,4219,3188,723,7324,7310,7327,16047,7325,41355,41354,7326,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,7322,7321],"class_list":{"0":"post-56420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-a-social-affair-dance-studio","9":"tag-action-news-jax","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-cbs47","12":"tag-crime","13":"tag-fl","14":"tag-florida","15":"tag-fox30","16":"tag-jacksonville","17":"tag-jacksonville-fl","18":"tag-jacksonville-sheriffs-office","19":"tag-northeast-florida","20":"tag-samuel-penalba","21":"tag-sex-crime","22":"tag-southeast-georgia","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-united-states-of-america","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-usa","29":"tag-wfox","30":"tag-wjax"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114833754988588175","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56420","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=56420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}