Published on April 28, 2026 at 2:47 pm
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A former Jacksonville youth pastor has been arrested on two charges of sexual battery against a teenage girl over multiple years, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office says.
The victim, who said she was 15 when the abuse began, also filed for a sexual violence injunction against the man, who she says “sexually assaulted me for about 5 years.”
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Joshua Allen Trent, 42, was arrested April 12 and was released on $400,000 bond on April 22, according to court records.
Investigators had an arrest warrant for him and saw him leaving a church on Herlong Road, then arrested him a mile away inside a Normandy Boulevard restaurant.
The victim is now 25. In her request for an injunction, she said Trent was her pastor.
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“He groomed me for several years from 2016-2022 and then sexually assaulted me for
several years,” she wrote in the request. “I have not seen or talked to the respondent in about 4 years, but I talked to him today. He implied that he knew my address, was watching my socials and my career.
“I am married, and the respondent mentioned that he knew I was married. He implied a lot of things, that he was stalking me.”
Trent’s arrest report said the investigation began in mid-January after First Coast Crime Stoppers received a tip Jan. 16 claiming the victim had been sexually abused. Detectives searched social media and found images of the suspect from 2015 with several teens in a church, which was not identified.
Detectives last found and interviewed the victim. She confirmed that she was a minor attending the same church where Trent worked, the report said.
According to the arrest report, Trent had served as a youth pastor at a Jacksonville-area church where the victim and her family were members and was able to build a personal relationship with her over time. He also had another job at Churchtrac, a church software company, the report said.
None of the churches where he worked were identified in the arrest report, but Chris Pruitt, senior pastor at Hillcrest Baptist Church on Collins Road, confirmed to Jacksonville Today that Trent worked there a decade ago.
“The individual is no longer associated with our church and has not been since 2018,” Pruitt wrote in a statement. “We are fully cooperating with the authorities as they conduct their investigation, and we remain committed to integrity, safety, and accountability in our ministry.”
In 2021, when the victim was in college, the suspect called her, saying that police had showed up at Churchtrac.
“The suspect advised her to get rid of a password-protected thumb drive that he had given her with love letters and nude photos of him,” the arrest report said. “The suspect advised the victim if the police spoke with her to say ‘I never touched you.'”
The software company terminated Trent in November 2021, about two weeks after police went there to investigate a separate matter, the arrest report said.
