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Payton H. Shires pleaded guilty to seven counts and was sentenced in Franklin County Common Pleas Court to four years and nine months in prison for sexual conduct with a 13-year-old counseling client and for later intimidating the boy's family in Columbus.

Shires, a 24-year-old licensed social worker from Mount Sterling, Ohio, worked for the National Youth Advocate Program, a Columbus agency that provides counseling and mental health services to young people. She was assigned to counsel the boy, who is a juvenile and is not named. His mother is also not named.

Columbus police said Shires engaged in sexual conduct with the boy multiple times while he was her client. The case came to light in late September 2023, when his mother found text messages between Shires and her son and called police. She gave detectives the phone, which contained a video of Shires engaged in sexual acts with the boy.

The Columbus Division of Police Exploited Children and PACT Unit investigated with the Franklin County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Detectives arranged a controlled three-way call involving the mother, investigators and Shires, during which Shires admitted to the sexual conduct. Columbus SWAT took her into custody without incident at 9:30 a.m. on October 6, 2023. She was charged with unlawful sexual conduct with a minor under Ohio Revised Code 2907.04(B)(3), a third-degree felony, and police said further charges were possible.

Shires was released on bond. On October 26, 2023, she went to the victim's home armed with a gun. Reporting says she fired a shot on arrival and threatened to kill the boy's mother and then herself. She was arrested again, and counts of intimidation of a victim or witness and inducing panic were added. The date of her police interview was not given, and it was not established which of her two arrests it followed.

On May 28, 2024, Shires pleaded guilty to seven of the eight counts against her: four counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor, two counts of intimidating a victim or witness and one count of inducing panic. She faced a maximum of 28 and a half years. On June 27, 2024, she was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison followed by five years of probation. She was classified a Tier II sex offender and required to register every 180 days for 25 years. At sentencing, she said she hoped the family could find peace and could find trust with their social workers.

Shires agreed on July 12, 2024, to give up her social work license. The consent agreement with the Ohio Counselor, Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist Board was signed on July 18, 2024. It was a voluntary surrender rather than a board revocation and permanently bars her from applying for any counselor, social worker or therapist license in Ohio. A civil suit brought by the boy and his mother against Shires and her former employer was pending at that point.

The video is a police interview-room recording that runs about 150 minutes. It shows the interview itself and opens with a short narrated introduction naming the people involved.

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Part 2 of 3 of the recording described above.

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Part 3 of 3 of the recording described above.