Parents answer teen’s phone to find convicted sex offender calling, FL cops say
A 16-year-old’s parents discovered she was being sexually abused when they picked up a FaceTime call on her phone to find a 53-year-old man on the other end, Florida authorities said.
Baron Keith Barber, already a convicted sex offender, has now pleaded guilty to a new slew of sex crimes in Lee County and been sentenced to 30 years in prison, according to the State Attorney’s Office for the 20th Judicial Circuit.
His attorney declined to comment on the case to McClatchy News Aug. 27.
Barber, now 55, met the teen when she ran away from home in southwest Florida roughly a year before the abuse was discovered in December 2023, investigators with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office wrote in an arrest affidavit.
According to the teen and her siblings, Barber would come over to her North Fort Myers home, give the teen the synthetic drug Molly, or MDMA, and engage in sex acts with her, deputies said. He also gave her sneakers, food and clothes, the girl recalled.
The incidents occurred in a shed outside her home at night, in her parents’ bedroom and in her own room when her parents were out, according to the affidavit. The teen told investigators she and Barber exchanged explicit photos, and she was usually under the influence of MDMA when he engaged in sex acts with her, deputies said.
But around Christmas 2023, the girl’s parents took away her phone when they found out she was skipping school, according to the affidavit. When she was due to get it back, they turned the phoneon at the same time Barber tried to video call her, the parents told investigators.
They answered the call and saw an unknown man who appeared to be a lot older than the teen, deputies said. When they asked why he was calling, he said he was just a friend and hung up, according to investigators.
They texted Barber from the girl’s phone that she was 16 and to stop communicating with her, and he said he thought she was 18, according to the affidavit. Eventually, the parents found his Instagram account and looked him up online, at which point they found out he was a registered sex offender, deputies said.
After initially not cooperating with detectives in January 2024, the teen went to a drug and human trafficking rehabilitation facility in Tampa, then detectives said they interviewed her again six months later, at which point she described the incidents with Barber.
The teen recounted that after Barber found out she was 16, he engaged in sex acts with her, deputies said. She identified him out of a lineup, according to the affidavit.
He was booked in Lee County jail in August 2024.
In 2002, Barber was accused of sexually abusing his stepdaughter’s 14-year-old friend and pleaded guilty to lewd or lascivious battery in Lee County, according to court documents.
Records from the Florida Department of Corrections show he’s been in and out of prison from 2002 to 2017.
Barber has now pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful sexual activity, lewd or lascivious battery, delivery of a controlled substance to a minor, promoting sexual performance by a child, two counts of possession of child sexual abuse material and two counts of failure to register as a sex offender.
This story was originally published August 27, 2025 at 11:56 AM with the headline "Parents answer teen’s phone to find convicted sex offender calling, FL cops say."