Federal authorities have charged a 34-year-old youth pastor from Catawba with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor by posing as a teenager on social media and asking her to send him sexually explicit images.

FBI agents arrested Jacob Ryan Barnett on Wednesday in North Carolina, and he will make his initial court appearance next week in federal court in Roanoke, according to a statement issued Thursday morning by U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia Todd Gilbert.

Barnett had been listed as associate pastor of students and mobilization on the website of Catawba Valley Baptist Church until Thursday, when The Independent, a British online news site, reported his connection to the church. The listing has since has been removed. A message left with the church office Thurs

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