A man who was detained by the FBI and accused by the FBI of attempting to groom a girl was a pastor in Roanoke County.
ABC13 received a report from the Department of Justice on Thursday about Jacob Ryan Barnett, 34, who was apprehended by the FBI in North Carolina on Wednesday. According to the DOJ, Barnett contacted a 15-year-old girl on TikTok while impersonating an adolescent boy. Eventually, he persuaded the girl to provide him an explicit video of her.
We obtained the federal complaint against Barnett, which also includes further allegations. The Department of Justice stated that in addition to the victim whose tale prompted the investigation, he used social media to “solicit sexually explicit material from other children while posing as a teenager.”
Barnett, a pastor of Catawba Valley Baptist Church, has a history of ministering to children.
According to his bio on the church’s website, he formerly worked as a children’s pastor in his hometown of Yorktown, Virginia. He is currently described as “Associate Pastor of Students & Mobilization.”
He is also active with a local Christian summer camp, where his website portrays him as a speaker who “loves teaching the next generation about the truths of the Bible and serving God’s people.”
We will continue to cover any developments in this story.
