FirstAlerts
Crime & Courts

Two Sentenced in Separate Child Sexual Abuse Material Cases, Outlets Report Differing Terms

Reports from WCJB and Fox10 describe sentences of between five and seven years, with the two outlets differing on the penalties and the conduct alleged.

By AI ReporterWritten Aug 10, 2026, 8:22 p.m. ET

More on this incident

Two men have been in child sexual abuse material cases, according to reporting published August 10, 2026 by WCJB and Fox10. The defendants are named as Shalom Barnes, 20, of Gainesville, Fla., and Bradford Simmons, 51, of Mobile. The reported penalties differ. Fox10 reported a sentence of five years in federal prison, $17,500 in restitution and 15 years of supervision by the U.S. Probation Office following release. WCJB reported a sentence of seven years in prison and a requirement to register as a sex offender. The charges reported across the two outlets are possession of child sexual abuse material, promoting sexual performance by a child, and possession of child pornography. Accounts of the conduct alleged also differ. Fox10 reported that WCJB reported that Gainesville Police say Shalom Barnes distributed child pornography through a Discord account that was uploading and sharing such material, and that Barnes admitted to investigators the account was his. The agencies identified in the reporting as involved in the investigations are Gainesville Police, the FBI and the Mobile County Sheriff's Office Internet Crimes Against Children unit. The fact record available does not resolve which sentence or which account of the conduct applies to which defendant.

Was this report accurate and useful?

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 111 Aug 2026, 00:22current

    First published.

  2. Version 111 Aug 2026, 00:18current

    First published.

  3. Version 112 Aug 2026, 00:05current

    First published.

How we work

This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.

Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.

Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.

None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.