But Senators took up the House bill\u00a0(HB 1159<\/a>) sponsored by Rep.\u00a0Berny Jacques<\/a>, a Seminole Republican. The House approved that legislation last week.<\/p>\n The measures had some technical wording differences, but Martin said he was willing to go with the House version.<\/p>\n \u201cThis bill strengthens penalties for the most serious sexual offenses, particularly for those committed against children,\u201d Martin said. \u201cThe bill also creates additional penalties for individuals, distribute or provide access to child sexual abuse material including through digital platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n Repeat offenders will see minimum sentences increased from 10 years in prison to 15. Sentences for sexual performance with a child would jump from 20 years in prison to 30. And those convicted of buying or selling children would see minimum sentences increased from 20 years to 30.<\/p>\n The measure also covers offenders who possess pornographic images of children under 12 years old involving \u201csadomasochistic abuse\u201d of a child, \u201csexual battery\u201d or \u201csexual bestiality\u201d involving a child, or any film, video or computer-generated images involving children.<\/p>\n Anyone convicted of those crimes, classified as a first-degree felony, would serve a minimum of 15 years in prison. If it\u2019s a second-degree felony, that would draw a minimum of five years in prison.<\/p>\n Jacques\u00a0added an amendment<\/a> to the measure in the House that says possessing \u201cchildlike sex dolls\u201d would count as a violation of the state\u2019s childlike\u00a0sex dolls act<\/a>\u00a0of 2021. That law prohibits sale and distribution of dolls resembling children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The measure also covers offenders who possess pornographic images of children under 12 years old. It\u2019s now up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[3345,87136,87137,2509,87138,87139,87140,232,234,233],"class_list":["post-185208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-berny-jacques","tag-child-sexual-predators","tag-hb-1159","tag-jonathan-martin","tag-mandatory-sentences","tag-minimum-sentences","tag-sb-1750","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185208","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/FL-Politics728x90@2x.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n