The Duval County jail. [Andrew Pantazi/The Tributary]

A former church youth leader accused of multiple counts of sexual battery died in-custody of the Duval County jail this week.

Gregory S. Norton, 59, was arrested on Sept. 23 on multiple counts of sexual battery and died on Jan. 31 after being taken to the hospital for a medical issue on Jan. 19, according to a news release from the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.

Norton had served at Oak Hill Church of the Nazarene and Westside Baptist Church. He was originally arrested on six counts of sexual battery stemming from incidents in 2002 and 2003, the Florida Times-Union reported.

The Sheriff’s Office began investigating Norton after detectives received a tip from the FBI in July, according to his arrest affidavit. From there, JSO’s Special Assault Unit interviewed multiple people who said they were sexually abused by Norton. He receive an additional 10 charges of sexual battery as the investigation continued.

Arrest document show he last worked at Cancer Specialists of North Florida.

The Medical Examiner’s Office will determine Norton’s cause of death. No other information about his death was provided. 

Deaths in the jail

Fifteen people died in custody of the Duval County jail last year. It was the fourth year in a row JSO saw double-digit deaths at the jail under a private medical provider.

The Tributary previously found that deaths in the Duval County jail tripled after 2017, when the Sheriff’s Office privatized medical care at the facility.

After The Tributary published its findings, JSO severed its $98-million contract with Armor Correctional Health Services, replacing it with a $110-million contract with NaphCare for the next five years.

Nichole Manna is The Florida Trib's Senior Investigative Reporter. She has been with the organization since 2023 and has covered the criminal justice system for more than a decade.

Nichole has extensively covered conditions at the Duval County jail and in 2024 received first place from the Green Eyeshade Awards in online investigations for her reporting of medical neglect at the facility. That series of stories was recognized with awards at the local, regional and national level. She took home the first place prize for a feature story in a small newsroom from the Online Journalism Awards in 2025 for her series, ‘Cold-Blooded’, which dissected a 1993 death penalty case and questioned whether the defendant received a fair trial.

Prior to joining The Trib, Nichole was an investigative reporter at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in Texas where she was a Livingston Award finalist for a series of stories about a neighborhood with the lowest life expectancy in the state. Her work helped get residents access to free pop-up clinics and they continue to receive help with food disparities.

She is currently working with ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network to produce an investigative project.

You can reach her at nichole@floridatrib.org.