Staff report
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A significant legal decision has been reached involving Shalom Ishrael Maurol Barnes, a 20-year-old, who has been sentenced to serve seven years in state prison. This will be followed by a decade of sexual offender probation. Barnes entered a plea of nolo contendere to 10 separate charges related to child pornography.
Initial Arrest Details
The initial arrest took place on August 21, 2025, following an investigation by the Gainesville Police Department. The triggering factor was a CyberTip that pointed to five videos identified as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which had been uploaded to a Discord account.
Further investigation led to a search warrant issued to Discord that revealed crucial account information and chat content. This chat was reportedly used to distribute child pornography, including the mentioned videos. Discord also provided details of a private message where the account holder requested explicit videos involving an adult woman and a pre-pubescent boy. One of the five videos submitted by Discord aptly matched this description.
The investigation led to Barnes’ apartment at Gainesville Place Apartments (2800 SW 35th Place), and the University of Florida Police Department confirmed that Barnes was a current student at the university with an address at Gainesville Place Apartments and a phone number that was used to create multiple accounts associated with Barnes, including the Discord account.
Post Miranda, Barnes reportedly said he created the Discord account when he tried out for the UF basketball team because they used Discord to communicate with players. He said he didn’t remember sending the five videos in the group chat because it was almost a year ago. When he was asked when he last shared CSAM, he reportedly said he did not “do that stuff” anymore but viewed CSAM on Twitter about two months ago.
Plea agreement
On July 21, Barnes entered a plea of nolo contendere to five counts of possession of child pornography (a lesser included offense) and five counts of directing or promoting a sexual performance by a child; five counts of soliciting child pornography were dropped as part of the plea agreement. According to the plea document, the maximum sentence for the charges is 100 years in prison.
Judge Susanne Wilson Bullard sentenced Barnes to five concurrent sentences of five years in prison with credit for 22 days served for the possession counts, followed by five concurrent sentences of two years for the charges of directing or promoting a sexual performance by a child. The prison sentence will be followed by 10 years of sexual offender probation, and he will be designated as a Sexual Offender.