Source: US FBI
ST. LOUIS – U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Clark on Thursday sentenced a registered sex offender who possessed child sexual abuse material and initiated a sexual conversation with a 11-year-old girl via Facebook Messenger to 16 years in prison.
Seth Allen Barger, 42, of Jefferson County, Missouri, sent a friend request to the victim in 2023. Via Facebook Messenger on July 26, 2023, he sought to engage her in a sexual conversation. The victim’s mother contacted the St. Louis County Police Department, and a detective interviewed Barger. Barger said his account had been hacked. After Barger consented to a search of his phone, a detective with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office found 35 images containing child sexual abuse material.
Barger pleaded guilty in November in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of receiving child pornography and one count of enticement of a minor.
The St. Louis County Police Department, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dianna Edwards prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.