the system making examples out of us citizens for much of his time in russia david barnes has been in moscows detention center 5 according to his family a texas man who has spent more than five months in a russian detention center is facing a different challenge from other recent american detainees such as trevor reed and brittney griner as authorities in moscow are accusing him of wrongdoing in his home country david barnes a huntsville alabama native who has lived in the houston area in recent years was taken into custody by law enforcement in moscow in january and has been incarcerated on russian soil ever since svetlana barnes was eventually traced to her homeland with courtappointed receiver robert berleth writing in a november 2020 report it is understood by the receiver the defendant has fled to russia and has no intention of returning to her home in texas they dont take into consideration that maybe there are fathers out there that are willing to fight for their children she tried everything she could to take the children from him and to get sole control and he fought her tooth and nail i feel like part of me is missing however she never showed with the children he is being held there as guilty until they can prove him innocent but theres nothing to hold him there theres no evidence of anything and he did not do anything all i remember from talking to david was she started accusing him of some kind of abuse but there was nothing definitive really said completely and totally devastated in early 2019 as part of a custody arrangement svetlana barnes was expected to bring the children to an agreedupon meeting point so david barnes could have the boys for a few days abc news patrick linehan contributed to this report in august 2020 a judge in montgomery county signed an order designating david barnes as the sole managing conservator of his children which gave him rights to decide the primary home for his children make decisions regarding their education represent them in legal actions and possess their passports he had gotten their room ready at his apartment and bought them toys and he was just so happy that they were going to come back to him and then they were gone were talking about russia in an interview with abc news reed described his pretrial russian detention facility as ratinfested and extremely dirty it took trevor reed three years to get out and his alleged crime was much less severe than what david is being accused of carol barnes said margaret aaron david barnes younger sister speaks with abc news in huntsville ala in may 2022 abc news he was completely and totally devastated aaron said on jan 13 russian investigators apprehended barnes in moscow accusing him of abusing his two children years earlier in texas according to translations of court documents carol barnes said that