40-year prison sentence for Maryland music teacher who sexually abused children

As summer ends and another school year begins, parents, teachers, school administrators and other caregivers would be wise to take note of a recent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigation that led to a Maryland teacher being sentenced to 40 years in prison for sexually abusing 15 children. The story was featured in People magazine.

Lawrence Joynes, 56, of Dundalk, Maryland, sexually abused 14 children in kindergarten through second grade in his classroom at the New Hampshire Estates Elementary school in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he was a music teacher. In the 1990s, Joynes also sexually abused another child, who is now an adult.

Joynes’ 27 year-career with the Montgomery County public school system, his days of freedom and, most importantly, his ability to sexually molest innocent children were numbered beginning in Oct. 2012 when an HSI partnering agency, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) sent a photo of a child being molested to the HSI Cyber Crimes Center (C3) for examination.

After intense investigation, forensic experts at C3 determined that Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, was the location where the photo was taken, and HSI Charleston was contacted.

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