Source: Jaquan Duvall Barnes connected with Beaufort County sex trafficking operation
By Mike McCombs and Delayna Earley
The Island News
A Port Royal man who escaped June 10 from the Jasper County Detention Center and is believed to be connected to a sex trafficking operation in Beaufort County, has been arrested and is in custody in Florida pending extradition back to South Carolina.
Jaquan Duvall Barnes, 29, of Port Royal, was arrested Sunday evening, July 7, by Jacksonville, Fla., Sheriff’s deputies and is currently detained at the John E. Goode Pre-Trial Detention Facility. News of his arrest was shared Monday morning on the Facebook page of the Hardeeville Police Department.
The South Carolina State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), in charge of the investigation into Barnes’ escape, has not responded to inquiries from The Island News.
Barnes was being held at the detention center following a March 5 arrest when he reportedly ran from police during a traffic stop.
He was initially stopped in a car with an underage girl who had been reported missing from Beaufort County.
The 28-year-old Port Royal resident was charged with Trafficking In Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age — 1st offense, and was also charged with possession for the marijuana that they found in his pocket.
Barnes is a registered sex offender who has previously pleaded guilty in Beaufort County to two counts of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and has pending charges in Fulton County, Ga., for pimping a minor and trafficking a person for sexual servitude.
According to sources, Barnes also faces additional charges in connection with a sex trafficking operation in Beaufort County that saw four men and a woman arrested in June.
SLED arrested Alban Bryan, 63, of St. Helena Island; Guy Frank Talley III, 27, of Okatie; and William James Youmans, 34, of Beaufort, on June 11, the day after Barnes’ escape.
All three men were charged with Trafficking In Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age, and all three remain confined at the Beaufort County Detention Center. Their preliminary hearing has been set for 9:30 a.m., Friday, July 19.
A fourth man, 50-year-old Terrance Lamar Fields of Beaufort, was arrested by the Hardeeville City Police on Tuesday, June 11, and has has been charged with Trafficking in Persons, Victim Under 18 Years of Age — 1st offense, as well.
And Ilaife Sylvia Meredith, 20, was arrested June 13 by the Hardeeville City Police, as well, and has been charged with Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor in connection with this case.
Hardeeville Police Chief Sam Woodward told The Island News that the arrests were connected to the sex trafficking enterprise, though SLED has not confirmed the connection.
According to sources, law enforcement, led by the S.C. State Law Enforcement Division (SLED), conducted raids June 11 at several Beaufort County residences, collecting evidence and making several arrests in relation to a human trafficking operation in Beaufort County.
These sources told The Island News that several men had used the promise of employment to lure multiple under-aged females to a location or locations where they were instead drugged, plied with alcohol, held against their will and forced to have sex with paying customers.
The dates during which the trafficking took place, according to arrest warrants, were from February 1, 2024 through March 5, 2024.
Little is known publicly about the victims in this case except there are at least several. Sources have confirmed to The Island News there are multiple victims and that at least one of the victims is as young as 14.
Though SLED confirmed the investigation and the initial arrests in a June 13 news release, it has provided no additional information since.
According to the news release, “the Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office, the Beaufort Police Department, the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office, the Hardeeville Police Department, the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office and U.S. Homeland Security Investigations are working together on the active and ongoing investigation.”
Mike McCombs is the editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.
Delayna Earley, who joined The Island News in 2022, formerly worked as a photojournalist for The Island Packet/The Beaufort Gazette, as well as newspapers in Indiana and Virginia. She can be reached at delayna.theislandnews@gmail.com.
