(Texas Scorecard) – A retired high school athletic trainer arrested last year for soliciting sex from a child online has now been charged with sexually assaulting a disabled student while working for Bridgeport Independent School District.
William Lawrence “Billy” Newsom, 61, was caught in an online sting in March 2024 sending sexually explicit messages to someone he thought was a 12-year-old girl and arranging to meet her for sex.
Newsom was arrested in April 2024 after an investigation by the Bridgeport Police Department, the Wise County District Attorney’s Office, Texas Rangers, and the U.S. Secret Service forensic division.
In October 2024, a Wise County grand jury indicted Newsom on five counts of online solicitation of a minor under the age of 14, a second-degree felony punishable by 2 to 20 years in prison.
Newsom remained free on a $25,000 bond.
This month, Newsom was arrested on new charges of indecency with a child by sexual contact and sexual assault of a child, both second-degree felonies, and two counts of aggravated sexual assault of an elderly or disabled person, a first-degree felony punishable by up to 99 years in prison.
The newly alleged crimes date back to 2002 and 2004, when Newsom was an educator.
Newsom was an athletic trainer at Bridgeport High School for 20 years, from 1998 until he retired in 2018.
He was booked into the Wise County Jail on June 4 and released the next day on a $50,000 bond. He is scheduled to be arraigned on July 11.
State records show Newsom’s lifetime Texas teaching certificate, first issued in 1985, is under review by the Texas Education Agency.
Newsom was nabbed in an online child sex solicitation sting by Alex Rosen of Predator Poachers. Rosen tracks suspected pedophiles nationwide, records their confessions, and turns over evidence he collects to local authorities.
Rosen posted to X on Monday that Newsom, “a former high school coach we caught in Bridgeport, Texas, in 2024, has now been charged with ANOTHER sex crime. Since our bust, one of his former students (a disabled girl) has come forward…”
According to Rosen, Newsom also admitted last year to viewing child sexual abuse material showing victims as young as 6 years old.
“If it wasn’t for our initial investigation, none of this would have been uncovered,” said Rosen.
“Public schools are infested, and we’re happy to help clean it up,” he added, citing recent catches of school employees in Minnesota and Illinois.
In 2023, Rosen caught Texas middle school teacher Mark Mallow in a sex solicitation sting. At the time, Mallow was out on bond for child porn charges from 2022.
Mallow taught music at Woodlake Hills Middle School in Judson ISD. Thanks to evidence and testimony provided by Rosen and his team, Mallow was found guilty on 20 counts of possessing and promoting child pornography and sentenced to 131 years in prison.
Another Bridgeport ISD educator, soccer coach and special education teacher J.D. Bales, resigned last year after he was accused of spending $5,455 at a Houston strip club during a coach’s clinic and charging it to a school district credit card.
In just the past few years, hundreds of Texas educators have been charged with sex crimes involving children.