Feds: Twin Cities girls volleyball coach coerced numerous elite players into sex, recorded some acts

A longtime Twin Cities girls volleyball coach spent years sexually assaulting at least five of his female players by using social media to entice his victims and then video-recorded some of the encounters, according to federal charges.

Dorian Christopher Barrs, 32, of Minnetonka was indicted this week by a grand jury on four counts each of producing child pornography and coercing minors into sexual acts, and one count of receiving child pornography in connection with his preying on at least five girls from October 2014 until this March.

All of the girls were his volleyball players at one time for either Maple Grove High School or the Minnesota Select or Minnesota Crossfire club teams in the Twin Cities. Messages were left Thursday with the school district and both clubs about whether Barrs continues to coach for them.

Minnesota Select Executive Director Scott Jackson responded and said Barrs coached “for a few years with us” until he was suspended from the organization and its facility on April 12 “as soon as we were made aware” of the allegations against him.

“In the time that he was here,” Jackson added, “there never was an inkling provided that maybe he was acting inappropriately.”

School district spokeswoman Kay Villella said Barrs was a volleyball assistant coach from the fall of 2022 until the fall of 2023 and is no longer an employee.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in its indictment that “efforts to identify additional minor victims reflected in Barrs’ communications are ongoing.”

Barrs was jailed late Wednesday afternoon and remains in the Sherburne County jail without bail ahead of an appearance in U.S. District Court on Monday. Messages were left Thursday with his attorney seeking a response to the allegations.

The indictment alleges that Barrs “used SnapChat, text messaging and other internet-based social media and communication applications to engage female minor victims into sexually focused conversations.”

From there, the indictment continued, he “enticed and coerced [the girls] to produce child pornography and send him sexually explicit images and videos depicting the minor victims [and did] coerce minor victims to engage in sexual activity ... including hands-on sexual activity with Barrs.”

The girls ranged in age from 15 to 17 at the time, the indictment read, and some whom Barrs targeted for sexually explicit images or encounters were as young as 13.

A filing in May in Hennepin County District Court made by a sheriff’s detective laid out further allegations against Barrs and the tactics he’s accused of employing to lure girls sexually.

According to the search warrant application, which sought court permission to gather team rosters and employment data from the Minnesota Select’s Osseo headquarters:

A 16-year-old girl said she won a spot two years ago on a Minnesota Select roster and became close to Barrs and another of her coaches. At the end of that first season, Barrs offered to coach her privately. They would hug at times during these sessions but nothing physical occurred otherwise.

They quit meeting once she joined a different club team.

However, the two kept in contact through SnapChat, and he directed her to add a woman to SnapChat because “I want her to be your new older sister.”

The woman quickly turned the conversation, which “was normal” at the start, into increasingly sexual comments and asked whether the girl wanted to have sex with Barrs. The girl pushed back, but the woman persisted and asked the girl again more than 20 times.

The girl asked Barrs about the woman, and he said she was 20 years old and someone he formerly coached. The girl told him the woman was making her uncomfortable, but Barrs responded by pursuing the girl for sex.

A law enforcement search of SnapChat confirmed the account the girl gave to investigators and also showed Barrs was in relationships with three women, ages 29, 20 and a 16-year-old current volleyball player he coached at Maple Grove High School as of the May filing.

Messages between the Maple Grove student-athlete and Barrs confirmed a video was made of them having sex, and that the sexual “relationship appears to be ongoing,” the filing from this spring read.

In April, law enforcement seized Barrs’ cellphone at his home and found messages between him with three females about sexual encounters they had, and evidence of sexually explicit material with four girls.