PRINCE GEORGE COUNTY, Va. — Retired Prince George County Public Schools Assistant Superintendent William Barnes was taken into custody Tuesday morning and held at Riverside Regional Jail after a Multi-Jurisdictional Grand Jury indicted the longtime educator on child sex abuse charges earlier this month.
Barnes, 78, is charged with nine crimes including aggravated sexual battery, indecent liberties with a child, and sexual assault by force or threat.
The Virginia State Police said the educator of more than 50 years has been under investigation since August 2023.
CBS 6 Investigative Reporter Laura French has been looking into claims for the last nine months.
Adopted Son is an Accuser
Donald Newbold, Barnes' adopted son, is one of the accusers.
"I lost my soul. The bastard stole my soul, that's what I lost," Newbold, now an adult, said.
As a child, Newbold’s poverty stricken parents agreed to let Barnes, who lived nearby, assume his custody.
Barnes eventually adopted Newbold when the parents moved out of Prince George County in the 1980s.
"So a young kid wishing he had a pair of shoes to have and more than what he knows what to do with well, where would you want to stay?” asked Newbold.
Barnes served as Newbold’s guidance counselor at N.B. Clements Junior High. Newbold was one of his guidance aides.
He also did side jobs at Barnes' home before he was adopted.
Watch: Former Virginia school administrator arrested, accused of child sex abuse
“At what point did you think this is not what I thought it was supposed to be?” asked Investigative Reporter Laura French.
"Probably the second time he provided me with alcohol and I didn't know how to drink it, " Newbold responded. “I over drank it and spun myself out of existence and I woke up and he was spooning and masturbating me."
There are Other Accusers
CBS 6 obtained six affidavits, now in the custody of the Virginia State Police, that showed Donald Newbold was not the only person who made sex abuse allegations against Barnes.
At least three men have accused Barnes of inappropriately touching them as kids.
Others have backed those claims, as well as allegations that Barnes allowed minors to use drugs and alcohol inside his home.
'A Lot of Sleepovers'
Brian Carr said Barnes was his basketball coach at Claremont Academy in the 1970s.
“He used to have a lot of sleepovers and you know, my parents wouldn't ever let me go over there and finally, one weekend for some reason they did,” Carr explained.
Carr said he was awakened by Barnes.
"He crawled up into the sleeping bag kind of, you know, and was kind of spooning me from behind and then I could feel his whiskers on my shoulders and neck and he started fondling me. But I wasn't having no parts of that," Carr said.
Allegations that are included in Carr’s sworn affidavit, and that he said he reported in an interview with the Virginia State Police.
"Listening to their relationship was like a flashback trigger to my relationship," Newbold, who wrote about the years of alleged abuse he said he endured by his adopted father in a journal, said Newbold.
"In here are some very graphic nights, and some very graphic events that have lived with me for a very long time," said Newbold. "Just very horrible stories of how he would hold me down... First time he did it I was 14 and a half. First time he actually sodomized me I was 15."
Newbold said the abuse continued through high school.
Barnes was an educator in Prince George County for more than four decades before he retired from his award-winning career in 2023 as Assistant Superintendent.
"You'd ride to school with him in the morning and he would give you a big ol' rack of cash ‘here you want some spending money don't tell anybody what happened last night I'm really sorry if I came up there I need to stop drinking and hope I didn't do anything wrong,’” he said. "Got to the point where if I would just let it happen then it will go away faster. If you didn't allow him, it was just going to take longer."
Barnes was promoted to Prince George Director of Secondary Education in 2014, the same year, according to an affidavit, another man reported him for touching his “genitals” at a sleepover when he was 14 years old.
“I felt Mr. Barnes slide up behind me and spoon me. He wrapped his arms around me briefly and slid his hand down my chest and stomach to my genitals,” that man explained in sworn testimony. “Through my shorts he found my penis and began to aggressively manipulate it with his finger and thumb."
'Fearful of Retaliation'
Eventually Donald Newbold said his friends stopped coming to the family home he shared with Barnes, but claimed the abuse didn’t end until age 17.
"Why did you hold it in for so many years?" asked French.
"Scared," Newbold answered. "Fearful of retaliation."
Something he said he’s experienced now after sharing his secret last summer with his wife and two children.
“When I told her who it was, she said, you're a liar. He'd never do that and then she left me to go live with him," Newbold explained. “So I hope they understand one day that I saved my life, I saved their life and that I'm sorry, it had to go down like this. But hopefully one day they will understand maybe others.”
Donald Newbold said his estranged wife has a protective order against him, and he hasn’t had contact with his children in almost a year.
“Why speak out?” asked French.
"It's like a 800,000 pound weight off my chest.” Newbold answered. “I tell everybody I have a broken heart that's warm because the Lord has me. But the good out of it is if I didn't tell somebody I was going to die."
Reaction to the Investigation
CBS 6 reached out to the Virginia State Police concerning the case, spokesperson Corinne Geller said, “We are not able to comment on the ongoing investigation.”
CBS 6 reached out to Barnes’s attorney Jay C. Paul for comment and have not received a response.
CBS 6 reached out to the Prince George County Public School system.
"It is not our practice to comment on matters related to personnel or active law enforcement investigations. But we can share that the school board and administration take allegations of this nature very seriously and will cooperate fully with any law enforcement investigation if requested to do so," a school system spokesperson responded.
Barnes is scheduled to appear in Prince George County Circuit Court Thursday morning.
School Board Meeting Incident
In an October 2, 2023 school board meeting, parent Gene Shanks questioned the board about what he referred to as “gross negligence.”
He spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting about a “long-term employee” in the Prince George school system under investigation for alleged child sex abuse.
Watch Gene Shanks address the school board
“The community would like answers why this person was still employed and around children at the start of this school year or at a minimum not put on some sort of administrative leave,” said Shanks.
Shanks redacted the individual's name at the meeting but CBS 6 reached out to Shanks and he confirmed he was referring to William Barnes.
Email Exchange Seeks Answers
On October 4, 2023, Dr. Lisa Pennycuff, who was the Superintendent at the time, distributed this message to parents:
On May 7, 2024, CBS 6 submitted a Freedom of Information (FOIA) request for former Superintendent Dr. Lisa Pennycuff’s emails between October 2, 2023 and November 17, 2023, with the keywords William/Bill Barnes, allegations and investigations.
CBS 6 also requested Superintendent Dr. Bobby Browder’s email communications from 2014 with the same key words.
CBS 6 was notified by the Prince George County School Board Clerk Becky Kirk that there were no responsive documents for Browder’s emails and “approximately five pages” that were being withheld from Dr. Pennycuff’s emails.
Eight days later, CBS 6 requested that the district reconsider its denial of records citing Va. Code 2.2-3704.01 and requested a redacted copy.
The district responded that “Upon further review, there are no records…”
CBS 6 responded with the following email.
Kirk responded via email the next day.
French followed up with the follow email on June 14:
CBS 6 never received any records or heard back from Ms. Kirk.
If you have any information on this case you can contact the Virginia State Police at 804-750-8758, dial #77 on your mobile phone or send an email to questions@vsp.virginia
Watch Laura French's reporting on CBS 6 News and WTVR.com. Have something for Laura to investigate? Email her.
