Former Ohio State offensive lineman Kirk Barton has been charged with aggravated vehicular homicide after being involved in a fatal accident Saturday morning in Columbus that left one man dead.
According to a release from Dublin police, Barton is suspected of driving a Ford F150 Raptor pickup truck at a high rate of speed and then striking another vehicle on West Bridge Street in Dublin at 2:56 a.m. Saturday morning. The driver of the car he struck, 24-year-old Ethan Perry, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Barton sustained non-life threatening injuries and was later released from Riverside Methodist Hospital and into Dublin Police custody. He was transported to Franklin County Jail.
According to Franklin County Municipal Court records, Barton now faces a second-degree felony charge of aggravated vehicular homicide/manslaughter while operating a vehicle under the influence, a serious charge that can result in a mandatory prison term of two to eight years. He will appear at Franklin County Municipal Court on Monday.
Barton, who played right tackle for the Buckeyes from 2003-07, earning All-America honors his senior season, has been involved with the law on several other occasions over the years. In 2018, he was charged with felonious assault on a police officer and resisting arrest after slamming a taxi van door into an officer’s arm outside The Bogey Inn in Dublin. According to The Columbus Dispatch, Barton has also had several traffic offenses over the past 20 years, including pleading down an operative vehicle while intoxicated, reckless operation and failure to stop.
Barton is also the co-founder of the website Buckeye Scoop, which has been banned from covering Ohio State events in person since 2021 due to the company using unauthorized access to practice footage to report on the football team.
