Port Royal man with long history of sex crimes now charged with trafficking underage girl

Adding to his lengthy record of prior sex crimes, 28-year-old Port Royal resident Jaquan Duvall Barnes has been charged with sex trafficking of a minor after Hardeeville police pulled him over and found an underage girl in his car. Officials say Tuesday’s arrest marks the first time this specific sex trafficking charge has been applied in the region.

Receiving a local tip Tuesday about a suspect wanted for sex trafficking in Georgia, patrol officers pulled over Barnes’ vehicle near the U.S. 17/I-95 junction in Hardeeville around 11:30 that morning. Barnes attempted to run and climb a nearby fence, but he was pulled down and arrested, said Hardeeville Police Department spokesperson Chief Sam Woodward.

Inside the car, police found an underage girl who was “acquainted with the suspect” and had been reported missing from Beaufort County. They also found marijuana in Barnes’ pockets, charging him with simple possession.

Woodward would not give additional details on the sex trafficking allegations made against Barnes, although South Carolina law defines the felony offense as the transportation of a person for the exchange of sexual acts. When the victim is less than 18, perpetrators could be punished by up to 30 years in prison.

A search of records dating back to 2016 showed no other instances of sex trafficking of a minor in South Carolina’s 14th Judicial Circuit — which includes Allendale, Beaufort, Colleton, Hampton and Jasper counties — according to Jeff Kidd, a spokesperson for the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office. The charge did not exist in state law until 2018, when a rewrite of the sex trafficking statutes added harsher penalties for cases with underage victims.

A spokesperson from the S.C. Attorney General’s Office could not be reached Thursday afternoon to verify that the charge was the first of its kind in the area.

That incident was far from Barnes’ first sex crime charge: In 2015, he pleaded guilty in Beaufort County court to two counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, an offense for the possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or child pornography.

And in Fulton County, GA, Barnes had previously been charged with pimping a minor and trafficking a person for sexual servitude. Both counts stem from a May 2018 incident in Sandy Springs, a city north of Atlanta: While “conducting surveillance” for a prostitution investigation in the area, police reportedly saw Barnes bring an underage female into a Marriott hotel.

As officers approached Barnes outside the hotel, he attempted to drive away, crashing into two patrol cars in the process. Two policemen opened fire, with one round striking Barnes in the hand. He faced a flurry of felonies after being released from the hospital — but he failed to appear at a court proceeding in September, leaving the charges pending in Fulton County court.

Barnes also reportedly shot a man twice in Conway, S.C. during a January 2018 drug deal, while he was already wanted by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) for aggravated assault charges. While his charges of attempted murder and illegal weapons possession were dropped, he pleaded guilty in 2019 to armed robbery and received a prison sentence of about three years.

Judicial records from 2013 to 2015 show Barnes has nearly a dozen additional convictions in Beaufort County, primarily for theft: two counts of felony larceny, five counts of larceny from a vehicle, one for tampering with a vehicle, possession of cocaine and two burglaries, one violent and one non-violent.

Sgt. Bonifacio Perez of the Bluffton Police Department says his agency has three outstanding arrest warrants for Barnes related to fraudulent checks.

Barnes was in custody at the Jasper County Detention Center as of Thursday afternoon. He will likely be transported to the Beaufort County jail and into Georgia for his outstanding warrants, although a timeline for his extraditions was not immediately clear.

The charges brought forth Tuesday will be prosecuted by the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.