Linwood Barnhill, a 59-year-old registered sex offender and former Metropolitan Police Department officer, was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison for recruiting minor girls to engage in commercial sex. The sentencing took place in U.S. District Court, with Judge Jia M. Cobb also ordering Barnhill to serve a lifetime of supervised release and pay $10,000 in restitution.
Barnhill pleaded guilty on September 17, 2025, to sex trafficking of a minor. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro announced the sentence alongside FBI Special Agent in Charge Reid Davis of the Washington Field Office’s Criminal Division.
“This former officer trafficked children on the streets of D.C. and at a strip club in Maryland. Then, after serving a seven-year sentence in prison, he resumed sex trafficking teen girls,” said U.S. Attorney Pirro. “Barnhill now has 27 years to think over what he did, and we won’t have to worry about his sex trafficking again.”
“While serving as a police officer over a decade ago, Barnhill preyed on underage girls. He took explicit photos of them and even forced one victim to work as a prostitute,” said the FBI’s Davis. “Upon his release from prison, he resumed trafficking minors for sex. He also forced his victims to find other vulnerable girls for him to exploit. As today’s sentencing demonstrates, the FBI will use every tool at our disposal to put habitual child predators in prison where they belong.”
Court documents show that between April 2024 and April 2025, Barnhill recruited girls under age 18 for commercial sex acts and collected more than $10,000 from one victim through these activities. He used some victims to recruit additional minors into commercial sex work.
In April 2024, Barnhill recruited a runaway 15-year-old girl by having her audition using a stripper pole installed in his basement and telling her she could earn money dancing at a strip club in Prince George’s County, Maryland. He transported her multiple times each week between the club and her residence.
Later that year, he paid another 15-year-old girl to help recruit other minors for commercial sex work. The recruitment often involved inviting girls under age 18 to her house before Barnhill drove them to areas known for prostitution activity within Washington D.C., according to evidence including text messages found on Barnhill’s iCloud account.
Barnhill had previously served seven years after pleading guilty in October 2014 to pandering a minor and possession of child pornography related to recruiting two children into commercial sex work.
The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Burrell.
This prosecution is part of Project Safe Childhood (www.projectsafechildhood.gov), an initiative launched by the Department of Justice in February 2006 aimed at protecting children from online exploitation and abuse by coordinating resources across federal, state, and local agencies.