A man accused of holding himself out as a police officer to two 11-year-old girls was convicted Friday of impersonating a peace officer.

Robert Andrew Sharp Jr., 37, was found guilty by a jury in Warren Circuit Court at the end of a three-day trial.

The jury of six women and six men deliberated for about 1 1/2 hours before returning its guilty verdict and recommended a one-year prison sentence for Sharp, who was taken into custody Friday afternoon.

“He can pretend to be a lot of things, but a police officer is not one of them, not to children, not in this community,” Warren County Commonwealth’s Attorney Kori Beck Bumgarner said during her closing argument.

The charge stemmed from an interaction Sharp had on Sept. 28, 2022, with two girls who were walking home after school.

According to testimony, the girls were walking on Cardinal Way when Sharp, who was running for First District Constable at the time, slowed down his vehicle, rolled down his window and offered them candy.

One of the girls began to go toward the vehicle but was pulled back by her friend, and Sharp then told them he was a police officer and flashed a badge.

Sharp then drove away, and the girls continued walking home, with one of them stopping along the way to talk to her cousin, who recommended that she tell her mother what happened.

The two girls testified that Sharp was driving a black car with bars separating the back seat from the front, with one of the girls saying that Sharp was driving what looked like a “cop car” and wearing clothing that made him appear to be a police officer.

Both girls said that they stopped walking home after school following the interaction with Sharp.

“(Sharp) sees that they’re shook up and you heard him say ‘I said it to ease their fears. I’m a cop, calm down, it’s OK,’ ” Bumgarner told jurors. “Submit to his pretended authority, everything is fine … two families in this community altered their behavior because of what he did.”

Sharp, who was represented by attorney Ken Meredith, testified that he told the girls he was a former police officer, and that the badge he displayed was from his job as a private security guard.

On the day of the incident, Sharp had been working a traffic detail in Nashville for a private security firm and wore a black T-shirt, black tactical pants and a yellow reflective vest.

Sharp told the jury he had taken off the vest after leaving the job, though one of the girls described him wearing a black vest.

“I saw one of the girls pull the other back so I thought I startled them, so I wanted to reassure them that I wasn’t a kidnapper or a murderer and that I was a former police officer,” Sharp said at trial.

He said he was driving down the street and stopping to talk to people about his campaign for constable, handing out campaign literature and candy along the way.

Meredith argued that Sharp did not exert any unearned authority to detain the children or keep them from continuing their walk home, and that he had no intent to do so during his brief interaction with them.

“My theory from the beginning is the commonwealth is trying to put square pegs into round holes and is chasing down rabbit trails that don’t exist,” Meredith said during his closing argument.

The mother of one of the girls said she contacted the Bowling Green Police Department’s non-emergency line about the incident.

BGPD Officer Stephen Irvin received a description of the car involved in the incident, and testified that, because he used to patrol the neighborhood where this happened, he believed he knew the driver.

Irvin went to Sharp’s home, where they talked about the incident.

By that point, the father of one of the girls posted about the incident on his Facebook page.

Irvin said that Sharp came to his car and told the officer he believed he knew why he was there.

Irvin testified he had been to Sharp’s home in March, 2022, when Sharp had contacted police about someone who was involved in a domestic dispute.

From talking to Sharp and observing the cars at his home his first time there, Irvin said he got the impression that Sharp was a Nashville Metro police officer.

Jurors saw body camera footage of Irvin and Sharp interacting on the night of Sept. 28, 2022, and when Irvin tells Sharp he believes he is a Nashville Metro officer who is out campaigning, Sharp confirms it.

Irvin then says in the footage he plans to fill out a contact card to make a record that he visited Sharp’s home, and says he will list the Nashville Metro Police Department as Sharp’s workplace.

Irvin testified that at the time he believed the incident was a “big misunderstanding” and that he left believing Sharp was a police officer.

The BGPD posted about the incident on Facebook, and Meredith said that comments on that post led police to investigate further.

“It’s clear why Bowling Green city police changed their course on this investigation – they were getting blown up on their own social media page by people in the neighborhood who were upset that someone hadn’t been arrested for trying to give 11-year-old girls some candy,” Meredith said at trial.

On Sept. 29, 2022, BGPD Lt. Col. Josh Hughes found Sharp’s phone number on a Facebook page promoting his campaign for constable and called Sharp to confirm that he was a police officer.

Hughes said he asked Sharp directly whether he was an officer, and Sharp at first said he was, then said he was a reserve officer and then said he had been a police officer in Millersville, Tennessee, but had resigned.

Hughes said he contacted the Millersville Police Department and learned that Sharp had left that agency in January 2022.

Sharp will return to court on March 25 to be sentenced by Warren Circuit Judge J.B. Hines.