Crime & Safety
Dundalk Man Denied Bail in Sex Abuse Case Involving 15 Former Students
Former music teacher Lawrence Welsey Joynes, 55, pleaded guilty to child pornography and now faces charges of sex abuse.
A Dundalk man charged with possessing child pornography pleaded guilty this week in Baltimore County Circuit Court, moving the case to Montgomery County, where authorities said he was teaching when he sexually abused more than 10 students, according to reports.
Lawrence Wesley Joynes, 55, was arrested on child pornography charges in February when Homeland Security and Baltimore County police found videos and images of children on his computer during an investigation of his home in the 1900 block of Ormand Road.
Joynes pleaded guilty to the crime Thursday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, where he was ordered to register as a sex offender and sentenced to his time served in jail—he's been at the Baltimore County Detention Center since Feb. 28, 2013.
Joynes was a music teacher who taught in Montgomery County Public Schools for more than 25 years.
Police found "thousands of images of child pornography" on one computer and individual devices in his home last year, The Gazette reported.
"It was the first step of a process that really began to shed light on what he was doing," Baltimore County prosecutor Lisa Dever said, according to The Washington Post.
After finding the pictures, police alerted Montgomery County detectives, who identified 14 elementary school students as victims of sex abuse while Joynes was a music teacher at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver Spring.
Charging documents show that Joynes asked students to stay in his classroom during lunch and would record them sucking on his finger or peppermint sticks, according to The Washington Post.
Authorities said that Joynes had sex with another student, who was at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, in the 1990s, according to The Gazette.
Joynes is charged with 14 counts of sexual abuse of a minor and one third-degree sex offense in Montgomery County, where officials filed the charges Aug. 8.
The assistant state's attorney in Rockville said Joynes impersonated others to avoid being found out and falsified his own death certificate when the middle school victim tried to contact him, according to The Gazette, which reported the assistant state's attorney deemed him a flight risk.
A Montgomery County District Court judge ordered Joynes held without bail on Friday, stating he was "a danger," according to WTOP.
Joynes has a preliminary hearing scheduled for March 7 in Montgomery County District Court.
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