D.C. police veteran charged with prostituting teens

WASHINGTON - A District of Columbia police officer was arrested Wednesday on charges of enlisting two teenage girls to work for him as prostitutes, authorities said.

Linwood Barnhill Jr., who joined the force in 1989 and has been placed on administrative leave and now faces two counts of pandering of a minor.

He was ordered held without bond Wednesday in D.C. Superior Court, pending a preliminary hearing Friday. Neither he nor his public defender addressed the charges in court.

Barnhill was arrested one week after police say they found in his apartment a 16-year-old girl who had earlier been reported missing. The girl told officers that she had met Barnhill, whom she said she knew as "Malik," at the mall and that he initially invited her to model for him before offering to arrange for paid sex acts with other men, according to charging documents in the case. The girl said Barnhill had also taken nude photographs of her, offered to pay for clothing and hair-styling before a date, and that she had met other women at his apartment who said they worked for him as prostitutes, authorities said.

Meanwhile, a second 15-year-old girl interviewed Monday told police that Barnhill asked her to work as an escort for him and "told her that her young age was not a problem because he had other young girls who worked for him," the charging documents state.

Barnhill's arrest came as another D.C. police officer facing child pornography charges in a separate investigation was found dead in the Washington Channel. Police confirmed Wednesday that a man pulled from the water Tuesday night was 32-year-old Marc Washington, of Waldorf, Md. A phone message left with his public defender was not immediately returned. Police said a car and some clothes were found nearby.

Washington's death was under investigation and an autopsy was being done to determine how he died.

Police have said the cases do not appear to be related.