Justin Barrington

A Cody man who’s on probation for strangling a former girlfriend is now facing new allegations that he stalked a different partner and then stole her phone in an effort to coerce her into having intercourse.

Justin V. Barrington, 33, was arrested last week on felony counts of burglary and sexual servitude of an adult plus misdemeanor counts of stalking and false imprisonment. He was released Friday on a $50,000 cash bond to await further proceedings, but could soon be rearrested, as prosecutors are also seeking to revoke his earlier probation.

Park County Circuit Court Judge Joey Darrah set the $50,000 figure at the recommendation of County Attorney Bryan Skoric, who asserted that Barrington has a 21-page-long criminal history that spans multiple states. Barrington’s record includes a felony conviction for choking a former girlfriend in Powell in 2021 and a series of since-dismissed charges that alleged he blackmailed that same girlfriend last year.

Barrington’s attorney, Tim Blatt, said Friday that his client has a “significant criminal history” related to alcohol, but has been sober for well over a year. Blatt also suggested there was another side to the story with the new charges.

‘Overbearing and very controlling’

A charging affidavit composed by Cody Police Det. Sgt. Trapp Heydenberk quotes the woman as saying she and Barrington began dating in December and got married in May. She reportedly told police he was “overbearing and very controlling throughout their relationship,” including wanting frequent updates on where she was when he was working out of state.

The woman later came to suspect that Barrington had installed some kind of spyware on her phone, the affidavit says, as he seemed to know what music she was listening to and who she called. In mid-June, she said she found an app that was sharing her data with another device and deleted it.

Not long after that, the woman said she told Barrington that she wanted to end their relationship.

After briefly getting back together, Barrington collected his personal items from the woman, the affidavit says. He was ordered to stay away from her workplace on June 28 after showing up there multiple times, the charging documents say, and police received reports that Barrington was suicidal.

On July 2, Barrington reportedly approached the woman while she was getting gas in Cody. She recalled him saying they needed to straighten things out and repeatedly asked if she was seeing anyone else, the charging documents say.

According to her account to law enforcement, the woman told Barrington she wanted to leave, but he lunged into her vehicle and took her cellphone. 

Over the course of an hour-and-a-half-hour-long interaction, Barrington repeatedly asked the woman to have sex with him and she refused, according to her account. Eventually, Barrington told her to follow him to another Cody store if she wanted her phone back. When they got there, however, he still refused to return the phone, she told authorities.

At one point, a friend texted to see if the woman was OK, and “Barrington asked … if he should say he’s holding her hostage, or say she’s OK,” Heydenberk wrote of the woman’s account. “[The woman] told him to say she’s OK.”

She said Barrington tried to generate sympathy by talking about suicide attempts and — despite her repeatedly saying no — continued trying to have sex with her. Ultimately, the woman said she “decided to give up [and] do what he wants because she didn’t want him to hurt her,” the affidavit says.

The rare sexual servitude charge alleges Barrington coerced the woman into engaging in “commercial sexual services,” with the apparent basis for the charge being that he forced her to have intercourse in exchange for her phone.

Blatt, the defense attorney, sought to poke holes in that charge at Friday’s hearing.

“I guess we’re to believe that she was accepting or feeling she was coerced into providing sexual services in an attempt to get her phone back, which may be true, but I think it’s a little out there,” he said.

Blatt added that the couple had exchanged “very consensual messages” up through mid or late June.

Skoric responded that the defense attorney’s comments sounded like “a lot of, from the state’s perspective, ‘let’s blame the victim here.’”

Past allegations

It’s not the first time that Barrington is alleged to have mistreated a romantic partner.

While living with another woman in Powell in December 2021, he reportedly grabbed her from behind, put both arms around her neck and choked her, charging documents say.

After the woman regained consciousness, she said Barrington told her that “if she left him, he would ‘burn everything and her dogs,’” according to an affidavit composed by Powell police.

Barrington entered a so-called Alford plea to a felony count of strangulation of a household member in May 2022; it’s a type of guilty plea in which the defendant can maintain their innocence.

As part of a deal that was supported by the victim, Barrington received three years of supervised probation, with one day of credit for time served and three to five years of prison time suspended.

But Powell police were called to the couple’s residence again on an early morning in June 2024. The woman said Barrington was drunk and angry and had punched a hole in the wall.

Officers helped her leave the residence, but about an hour later, charging documents say the woman reported that Barrington was threatening to distribute intimate images of her.

Barrington repeatedly called her phone while she was at the police station, and she eventually picked up.

Not knowing that Officer Caleb Schmidt was listening in, Barrington told the woman she was “tapping into the crazy side of Justin,” charging documents say. Barrington said he knew where the woman’s family members lived and “there’s only so many places you can stay,” according to Schmidt’s recounting. Barrington also reportedly said security cameras were the only thing keeping him from popping the woman’s tires and expressed displeasure that she’d called the police.

“... You know what’s going to happen to you then, right?” he reportedly said. “The same thing I physically told you was going to happen to the next person that was going to try to send me to prison. Cause that was literally you, tonight.”

The woman eventually turned the call over to Schmidt. Barrington told the officer he’d done nothing illegal, but after Schmidt warned that he had violated his probation conditions, “Barrington suddenly became compliant and said he had no intentions of hurting [the woman],” the affidavit says.

Dropped with a warning

Then-Deputy Park County Attorney Jack Hatfield filed three felony charges against Barrington from the June 2024 incident: two counts of blackmail and another of influencing, intimidating or impeding a witness.

However, Barrington’s then-girlfriend was upset by the severity of the charges, testifying that she wanted Barrington to get help rather than the punishment sought by the state.

Hatfield later left the office, and in December, then-Deputy County Attorney Laura Newton agreed to at least temporarily drop the case. That was in exchange for Barrington admitting he’d violated his earlier probation in the strangulation case by drinking alcohol and accepting two more years of supervised probation. The three- to five-year prison sentence would remain suspended.

District Court Judge Bill Simpson initially balked at the arrangement, suggesting there would be “no accountability” for the 2024 arrest.

However, Newton explained that she didn’t agree with the charges filed by Hatfield and suggested the victim had been mistreated by the county attorney’s office. Newton also said the victim had relayed that, when Barrington is sober, “he’s a great guy.”

“I think that this man did do well [prior to the 2024 arrest], … already is a contributing member to society,” Newton said, “and I don’t think that jail would serve a purpose in what we need to do in order to have justice for the victim — as well as help this man change for the better.”

Following that explanation and Barrington’s assurances that he had completed treatment, obtained psychiatric help and would never drink again, Simpson accepted the deal.

However, “I promise you, without equivocation and no hesitation, do not be back in court,” the judge warned Barrington in December, “because if I’m still here, and even if I’m not, whoever the judge is, you’re going to go to the penitentiary.”

On Monday, prosecutors moved to revoke Barrington’s probation in the strangulation case, citing his new arrest and his failure to tell his probation agent about his late June contact with police. No hearings have been scheduled on the revocation proceeding, but a preliminary hearing in the new case is tentatively set for Friday.