Former Education First for Newberry spokesperson Joel Searby was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Thursday for multiple child sex crime charges.
Searby, 44, was sentenced on eight counts of possession of child porn, traveling to meet a minor, lewd and lascivious behavior and using a two-way communication device to commit a crime.
According to a WCJB, Searby received 10 years in prison followed by 10 years of sex offender probation. He was also ordered to have no contact with the victim or his family.
Searby was arrested on June 20, 2024, and charged with multiple counts of inappropriate contact with a minor after a 15-year-old boy received multiple Snapchat messages from a suspect that were sexual in nature and solicited the victim for photos and sexual acts.
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office (ACSO) started an investigation on June 19, 2024, and, according to its arrest report, verified that the suspect in the Snapchat messages was Searby.
Law enforcement replied to Searby’s message pretending to be the victim and obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s residence. Officers took Searby into custody and transported him to the Alachua County Jail. The following week, Searby was denied bail.
In September 2024, Searby was charged with 12 counts of possession of child pornography with enhancements.
Before ACSO took Searby into custody for the original charges, deputies obtained a search warrant for his residence, with the belief that there would be Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) on Searby’s electronic devices.
“Offenders who are sexual (sic) attracted to children typically do not start with hands-on offenses,” the ACSO report stated.
Searby’s laptop, collected from his home’s office area, was collected during the execution of the search warrant, and a separate search warrant was written to obtain the data contained on the laptop.
The laptop was found to contain 12 instances of CSAM, made up of 10 images and two videos. One video was of a boy estimated to be 14-16 years old, while the other video and all 10 images were of prepubescent boys estimated to be 7-10 years old.
Before his arrest, Searby was a board member and spokesman for Education First for Newberry, a nonprofit pushing the “Yes Newberry” campaign to convert Newberry’s three public schools into charter schools. Yes Newberry proponents cut ties with Searby immediately after his arrest.