Jones

ELKINS – The pastor of the Summit Church in Elkins is facing a new felony charge after police allegedly found sexually explicit content involving a juvenile on his cellphone, including an AI generated image of the alleged victim.

Kevin Curtis Jones, 33, has been charged with one count of distribution and exhibiting of material depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit activity, a felony.

Jones was first arrested and charged with one count of soliciting a minor via computer, a felony, on Oct. 1.

Jones is currently being held at the Tygart Valley Regional Jail on two separate $50,000 cash-only bonds set by Randolph County Magistrates Benjamin Shepler and Michael Dyer.

According to the newest criminal complaint, filed by Deputy and Task Force Officer D.A. Cale with the Barbour County Sheriff’s Office and the Mountain Region Drug And Violent Crime Task Force, on Oct. 1, Cale issued a search warrant for digital evidence from Jones’ cellular devices.

Cale allegedly located several images of a juvenile on Jones’ cellphone, the complaint states. The images depicted the alleged victim “in (their) underwear with (their) arms shrugged.” Cale writes that, in each of the known images of the alleged victim, the alleged victim was wearing different color underwear. He writes that one of the photos has a text overlay depicting, “Does this Match?”

Though the alleged victim is no longer a juvenile, the timestamps on the images allegedly found on Jones’ cellphone show that the alleged victim was under 18 years old when the photos were taken, the complaint states.

A separate photo was allegedly located on Jones’ cellphone of the alleged victim in a bathing suit, according to the compliant. The photo was formatted as a JPEG and was timestamped March 3, 2025 at 5:48 p.m.

Cale writes in the complaint that the next image after the swimsuit photo allegedly has the exact same timestamp and is believed to be a “computer-generated AI” image of the alleged victim “exposing” private parts.

“Pastor Kevin Jones was in possession of this image,” Cale wrote in the complaint.

According to the first criminal complaint against Jones, filed by Cale, on Oct. 1, Cale assisted Cpl. C. Parks, also with the Barbour Sheriff’s Office, with a soliciting investigation involving Jones.

Parks told Cale he was “investigating Pastor Kevin Jones for soliciting a minor with a computer,” the complaint states. The alleged victim was an attending member of the Summit Church in Elkins. Cale applied for a search warrant in Randolph County to seize relevant cellular devices, flash drives, storage devices, computers, etc.

On that same day, Cale located Jones in an RV at the Smokey Bottom Camp Ground, off Route 33, the complaint states. A “large amount” of cellular devices and storage devices were seized. Cale also made contact with the alleged victim, who came out of the RV to speak with him.

The alleged victim stated that Jones was their pastor and that they recalled an event where they and other juveniles went to Jones’ house in Randolph County around Christmas of 2023, the complaint states. The alleged victim told Cale that Jones began communicating with them over the phone about being in a “clandestine relationship” with the alleged victim once they turned 18.

According to the complaint, Jones “is the pastor of Summit Church… where the (alleged) victim attends, making (Jones) a person of trust over the victim.” Cale writes that he explained to the alleged victim what solicitation of a minor via computer was defined as under West Virginia State Code, and then asked the alleged victim if they thought Jones had solicited them. The alleged victim said, “Yes.”

“It is evident that Pastor Kevin Jones used a communication device to contact the victim to solicit, entice, seduce or lure (them) into a clandestine relationship while he remained married and was a person of trust,” Cale writes in the complaint.