COLUMBUS, Ohio — A Texas man was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Columbus to 30 years in prison for sexually exploiting a Coshocton County teenager he met online while playing Call of Duty, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio.
Harrison Michael Barton, 39, pleaded guilty in February 2026 to sexual exploitation of a minor and attempted kidnapping of a minor, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. U.S. District Judge Edmund A. Sargus Jr. imposed the sentence of 360 months in federal prison.
Federal prosecutors said Barton took a 31-hour Greyhound bus trip from Florida to Coshocton County in February 2025 to sexually exploit a 15-year-old girl he had met online about a month earlier. The teenager picked Barton up in Newcomerstown, and Barton admitted engaging in sexual conduct with the minor and taking sexually explicit pictures of her, according to prosecutors.
Barton was arrested at John Glenn Columbus International Airport while attempting to fly to Florida with the victim, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. At the time of his arrest, Barton was wanted on an outstanding parole warrant out of Texas stemming from a prior conviction for online solicitation of a minor, in which he had been sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to prosecutors, who said Barton was a registered sex offender.
“Barton was a registered sex offender who traveled the country to commit crimes against a minor he met online,” U.S. Attorney Dominick S. Gerace II said in announcing the sentence. “He is a predator, and his history makes clear that he poses a grave and ongoing threat.”
The sentence was announced by Gerace; Jason Cromartie, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Cincinnati Division; Coshocton County Sheriff Christopher Walters; Newark Police Chief Erik McKee; and John Glenn Columbus International Airport Police Chief Ronald Gray, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Emily Czerniejewski and Jennifer M. Rausch represented the United States in the case.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said the case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide Department of Justice initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.
