A former Hamilton County deputy Friday lost his ability to work as a sworn Tennessee officer after the sheriff’s office previously terminated him over allegations he solicited a 13-year-old girl for sexual images.
Johnathan Allen, 26, was charged in early December with three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and one count of criminal solicitation of a minor.
Shortly after, Sheriff Austin Garrett fired Allen and submitted a request to decertify him to the state agency that oversees law enforcement officers.
Members of the Tennessee Peace Officer Standards and Training Commission voted unanimously to decertify Allen during an informal hearing Thursday, and the board approved the decision in an official vote Friday.
Allen didn’t show up to the informal hearing, so it was a default order for decertification.
He is being held at a York County, South Carolina, jail, according to the local sheriff’s office website.
York County deputies started investigating Allen in September after the victim’s father found disturbing messages on her cell phone, according to a York County Sheriff’s Office report.
The girl and a man, later identified as Allen, had been allegedly messaging on Reddit before moving to text message.
Allen is accused of asking the girl for nude photographs and asked her to perform sex acts with a dog. She sent photos and one video of herself, the report said.
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He reportedly told the victim he had already been through puberty to explain his deep voice over the phone.
Allen was entitled to a sheriff’s office disciplinary hearing after which he was fired immediately.
He joined the department as a jail deputy in 2021 and had recently completed the basic law enforcement academy at the time of his arrest. He was participating in the sheriff’s formalized field training program.
“You preyed upon a child, one of the most egregious things a person can do,” Garrett told Allen at the end of his hearing, according to a news release. “You embarrassed this agency, you’ve lost the trust and embarrassed the people of this county and this office, and the men and women of the sheriff’s office who work here.”
Contact Sofia Saric at ssaric@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6476.