Former music teacher Lawrence Joynes pleaded
guilty Monday to sexually abusing 15 minors, culminating a sweeping
investigation into his conduct with students he taught in Montgomery
County elementary and middle schools.
Joynes, who taught for 27
years at 11 Montgomery schools, officially accepted responsibility
Monday morning for abusing students in kindergarten through second grade
while he worked at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School in Silver
Spring, Md.
A few hours later, he did the same in a second case involving a onetime student at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring.
Joynes, 56, who has been held since his arrest in 2013, answered
judges’ questions at the proceedings. At a morning hearing, he bowed his
head, his forehead in his hands, as a prosecutor detailed the
accusations involving the elementary school children.
Much
of the abuse at New Hampshire Estates took place during school hours
inside his music classroom, where he put girls in sexual poses and made video recordings of them — movies he edited with sexually explicit captions, according to police.
Joynes
allegedly formed a group of students called the “lunch bunch,” earning
their trust and recording some of them as they licked candy canes. He
was accused in court papers of getting the name of one of victims
tattooed on his shoulder.
The 15 counts to which Joynes pleaded guilty Monday related to 15 victims.
... “This man is a predator; he’s been a predator for decades,” State’s
Attorney John McCarthy said after the hearings, noting that Joynes
victimized “at least 15 children that we’re aware of. I think that’s a
disgrace.”...
“This man is a predator; he’s been a predator for decades,” Very profound statement indeed!
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