JACKSONVILLE — A 38-year-old Jacksonville man has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to entice a 13-year-old child to engage in sexual activity, the result of an FBI undercover operation that ended with his arrest at a planned meeting location in Jacksonville.
U.S. District Judge Jordan E. Pratt also ordered Jerry Alexander Cobb to serve a 12-year term of supervised release and to register as a sex offender. Cobb pleaded guilty on Feb. 20, 2026. U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced the sentence.
According to court documents, an FBI agent conducting an undercover operation on an online social media application between July 18 and Aug. 1, 2025, exchanged private messages with Cobb. After the agent told Cobb the purported child was 13 years old, Cobb asked for the child’s home location, whether the child could sneak out at night and whether she was a virgin.
On July 30, 2025, Cobb suggested he and the child meet for sex and promised he would use a condom. The next day, Cobb texted the purported child, “[y]es I’m serious that we can [have] sex.” On Aug. 1, 2025, Cobb made specific plans to meet later that day at a location in Jacksonville, then took a car service from his apartment to the meeting point, where FBI agents arrested him.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown prosecuted the case.
The prosecution was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse. The program marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children and to identify and rescue victims.