{"id":169598,"date":"2026-02-26T04:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/169598\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:00:08","slug":"leon-county-man-arrested-on-multiple-human-trafficking-charges-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/169598\/","title":{"rendered":"Leon County man arrested on multiple human trafficking charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; One man is behind bars and facing human trafficking charges, according to arrest documents. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Sheldon Barber was arrested on Wednesday on several charges related to a human trafficking operation. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Arrest documents show Barber recruited and held at least four victims, forcing them to perform commercial sex acts from April 2023 to July 2024. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"figure-img img-fluid mx-auto d-block\" alt=\"Barber is facing human trafficking charges, according to arrest documents.\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/VSZ46HXP6BHFBO5LCJJ2YR6BSM.png\" width=\"980\" height=\"551\" \/>Barber is facing human trafficking charges, according to arrest documents.(Leon County Jail)<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Victims reported Barber would hit them, lock them in rooms and deprive them of food to control their behavior, records show. Barber would also force the victims to give him all the money they made from commercial sex acts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">One of the victims told investigators that she continued to engage in commercial sex acts at Barber\u2019s direction even after he was incarcerated on different charges. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Arrest papers show that several of the victims were branded to \u201csymbolize ownership and loyalty to Barber.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-center article-text\">More on crime in our area:<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Barber is facing four counts of human trafficking, four counts of deriving support from the proceeds of prostitution and four counts of use of a two-way communication device to facilitate a felony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Barber was previously convicted on drug and weapons charges in May 2025, according to the Florida Department of Corrections. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">To keep up with the latest news as it develops, follow WCTV on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WCTV.tv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/wctvnews\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@WCTVEyewitnessNews\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/nextdoor.com\/page\/wctv\/\" target=\"_blank\"> <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WCTV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Have a news tip or see an error? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2026\/02\/26\/lcso-leon-county-man-arrested-multiple-human-trafficking-charges\/mailto:news@wctv.tv?subject=Correction%20Needed\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Write to us here<\/a>. Please include the article\u2019s headline in your message.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Be the first to see all the biggest headlines by downloading the WCTV News app. Click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wctv.tv\/2024\/12\/18\/download-free-wctv-mobile-streaming-apps-today\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to get started.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 WCTV. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) &#8211; One man is behind bars and facing human trafficking charges, according to arrest documents.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":76828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[692,265,15596,1289,73426,232,234,233],"class_list":{"0":"post-169598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tallahassee","8":"tag-arrest","9":"tag-crime","10":"tag-human-trafficking","11":"tag-leon-county","12":"tag-sex-acts","13":"tag-tallahassee","14":"tag-tallahassee-headlines","15":"tag-tallahassee-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}