Former DC police officer charged with sex trafficking children
Convicted child sex offender arrested on trafficking charges
A registered sex offender and former D.C. police officer has been charged with more crimes against children. He was caught as part of a nationwide sex trafficking sting operation.
WASHINGTON - A registered sex offender and former D.C. police officer has been charged with more crimes against children. He was arrested on sex trafficking charges as part of a nationwide operation targeting child predators, federal authorities announced.
Former DC officer arrested
What we know:
Linwood Barnhill, 59, a registered sex offender in Washington, D.C., was taken into custody on May 1.
Prosecutors say he recruited a series of minor children to engage in commercial sex acts and financially profited from those commercial sex acts.
According to the criminal complaint, he recruited a minor from a strip club in Maryland called the Ebony Inn. She told investigators that he made her work in the VIP room where she was required to have sex with men for money.
A separate witness also told investigators that he knowingly took multiple minor children to K Street, Northeast, to put them on the corner to engage in commercial sex work.
He faces multiple charges, including sex trafficking, fraud, and racketeering. The case is under investigation by the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force.
Dig deeper:
Barnhill served in the Metropolitan Police Department’s Seventh District. In 2014, he pleaded guilty to two counts of pandering of a minor and one count of possession of child pornography.
Ten years ago, Barnhill was sentenced to seven years behind bars after pleading guilty to child porn and charges related to inducing a 15-year-old girl to have sex for money.
Nationwide crackdown
Big picture view:
The U.S. Attorney's Office announced two additional arrests — one woman, Jamie Greer Spies, who prosecutors say solicited images that portrayed the child sexual abuse of minors in an online forum. The criminal complaint says spies messaged an undercover officer in the forum to say she was interested in the abusive photos.
The other arrest was Timothy Brockerman, a 35-year-old man from Herndon. He was arrested for traveling to D.C. to have sex with a six-year-old after setting up a meeting with an undercover police officer, who pretended to be the child's father.
"These depraved human beings, if convicted, will face the maximum penalty in prison, some life. We will find you, we will arrest you, and we will charge you. If you are online targeting a child, you will not escape us. The FBI and the Department of Justice will come after you, and we'll prosecute you," U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said.
According to DOJ, 115 children were rescued as part of the operation.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Columbia.