Silver Spring Teacher Charged in Sex Abuse of 14 Students

A Silver Spring music teacher is accused of sexually abusing 14 students from 2005 to 2013 at New Hampshire Estates Elementary School.

Lawrence Wesley Joynes, 54, of the 1900 block of Ormand Road in Dundalk, has been charged with 14 counts of sex abuse of a minor and one count of third-degree sex offense.

The students were in kindergarten, first and second grade, Montgomery County police said. The abuse occurred in Joynes’s music classroom or on school grounds, police said. A 15th victim identified by police is now an adult. She was victimized in the 1990s, police said. Joynes is charged with child abuse and second-degree rape in that case.

Joynes had been a Montgomery County Public Schools teacher for about 27 years, police said. He had taught at New Hampshire Estates, at 8720 Carroll Ave., for about 10 years.

Joynes is being held at the Baltimore County Detention Center on child pornography charges, after being arrested in February. A Homeland Security and Baltimore County police child exploitation investigation found videos and images of children on his computer.

Detectives are asking anyone who may have been a victim and who has not reported it to police to call the Montgomery County Police-Child Exploitation Unit at 240-773-5400.