18-year-old charged with 21 felonies related to sexual activity with a 13-year-old

Staff report

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Jack William Cheves, 18, has been charged with 21 felonies related to sexual activity with a 13-year-old victim, and more charges are reportedly pending with a second victim.

According to Cheves’s arrest report, he allegedly “met” the victim when her 14-year-old friend (the potential second victim) was visiting her home on December 30, 2024; the victim said her friend was on a Snapchat video chat with Cheves, and Cheves asked for the victim’s Snapchat account name.

The victim said Cheves contacted her on Snapchat the next day, and she told him she was 13 years old. She said he told her he “liked” her and was interested in her, despite their age difference, and he asked her how she would feel if she knew he was masturbating at that moment. The victim said Cheves asked her to “join” him in masturbating with her camera on and eventually showed her his genitals. The victim said that she eventually felt “pressured” to show Cheves her genitals.

The victim said that over the next several weeks, Cheves instructed her to engage in sexual acts during video chats and to send him sexually explicit pictures. He allegedly taught her how to save the images and videos on her phone “in a manner to avoid detection.”

The victim said Cheves “ask[ed], beg[ged], and even plead[ed]” with her to engage in sexual activity with her 14-year-old friend in January 2025 and to take photos of that activity. She said he made both girls read sexual messages out loud on video chats and told them he intended to have sex with both of them, “together and independently.”

In January, the victim reportedly went to the Oaks Mall with her mother but separated from her mother and met up with Cheves at Spencer’s. The victim said Cheves sexually battered her in Spencer’s, and the investigating detective reported that this activity was referred to in chats between Cheves and the victim “both before and after the described incidents.”

About a week later, the victim reportedly sent a message to her friend, saying Cheves had taken advantage of her and manipulated her into letting him touch her.

The detective reported that messages between Cheves and the victim show over 30 instances in which Cheves directed the victim to engage in sexual performances, take photos or video, and send them to him, and Cheves possessed over 50 sexually explicit images and videos of the victim. The detective also reported finding over 20 images and videos that were sent to the victim and showed Cheves masturbating or exposing his genitals.

The detective reported that she had identified over 180 felony violations and that charges for crimes against the second victim are forthcoming.

Post Miranda, Cheves reportedly admitted to engaging in sexual conduct and contact with a “13-year-old” and estimated he had engaged in live-chat masturbation with the victim 35 or 40 times in January 2025.

Cheves has been charged with lewd or lascivious molestation of a victim under 16, lewd or lascivious battery of a victim under 16, lewd or lascivious conduct by a person 18 years of age or older, traveling to meet a minor for unlawful sexual conduct, lewd or lascivious exhibition in the presence of a person under 16 years of age, four counts of lewd or lascivious exhibition by a person 18 years of age or older, seven counts of possession of child pornography, four counts of using a computer to solicit a child, and harmful communication to a minor.

Cheves has no criminal history. Judge David Kreider ordered him held without bail pending a hearing on a motion from the State Attorney’s office to hold him without bail until trial; if the judge denies the motion, bail will be set at that hearing. Judge Kreider also ordered that he have no access to the internet.

Articles about arrests are based on reports from law enforcement agencies. The charges listed are taken from the arrest report and/or court records and are only accusations. All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.