Alarming new details emerge on Jalen Kitna's arrest, child pornography charges

More details have emerged regarding Florida quarterback Jalen Kitna’s arrest this week. The Tampa Bay Times reported he was in possession of multiple photos of child pornography that were shared on a Discord server.

An investigation began in June and investigators found Kitna had five images of child pornography in his possession, according to an arrest report obtained by the Tampa Bay Times’ Matt Baker. The IP address and phone number were what helped investigators find out Kitna’s involvement.

“The (arrest) report said Kitna shared that image of a prepubescent girl and another of a pubescent female exposing herself,” Baker wrote. “‘So young junior’ are among the words written on both pictures. He told authorities that he thought they were legal because he found them online. When police searched Kitna’s phone, they found three more images of two nude pubescent juveniles in the shower, according to the report. All three of those images appear to be self-produced and were saved onto his cell phone last December. The report did not estimate their ages.

“Kitna told police that he was in servers that discuss, solicit and distribute child sexual abuse material, but he ‘tries to shy away from it,'” the report said. Kitna also said he had been in groups on the message system Kik that distributed similar material and that he ‘might have accidentally downloaded’ those types of items but would delete them.”

Police arrested Kitna Wednesday on the charges, and Florida released a statement announcing his indefinite suspension. He served as the Gators’ backup quarterback during his time in Gainesville, completing 10 of 14 passes for 181 yards and four touchdowns during his time in Gainesville.

Police arrested Jalen Kitna Wednesday on child pornography charges

Kitna, the son of former NFL starter Jon Kitna, was arrested on child pornography charges, according to TMZ. The Alachua County Sherriff’s Office listed him in their database after he was taken into custody on Wednesday afternoon, although his charges were initially unlisted.

A spokesperson for the Gainesville Police Dept. told TMZ that Kitna was booked on five separate charges. Those charges included two counts of distribution of child exploitation material, and three counts of possession of child pornography.

The Alachua Chronicle reported that the Gainesville Police Department received a cyber tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that someone in the area was using the online messaging service Discord to distribute an image of child sexual abuse.

On3’s James Fletcher III contributed to this report.