VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Retired Virginia Beach gym teacher Joseph Molineaux has been sentenced to serve six months for trespassing onto Kempsville High School's campus with weapons earlier this year and making a threat to the school.
A Virginia Beach judge sentenced Molineaux on Tuesday on charges of making a written threat to the school, possessing a weapon on school property, and trespassing. He got a five-year sentence for the threat charge with four years and six months suspended, bringing his time to serve for that offense to six months.
Molineaux received 12-month sentences for both the weapon and trespassing charges — however, both sentences were fully suspended.
His sentencing comes after he took a plea agreement last month.
Watch previous coverage: Molineaux gets 6 months for sending text threats
Tuesday's sentence adds six months on top of a sentencing he received in October on charges from York County, where he was found guilty of sending threatening text messages to relatives. His total sentence, which includes time served since his arrest in April, is one year.
The crimes Molineaux is now convicted of stem from an incident back in April when police arrested him on Kempsville's campus and found a knife in his car. Investigators then found disturbing text messages he sent to his mother about "mowing down the administration" at the school with an AK-47. Police later discovered an AK-47 while searching Molineaux's home.
The judge ruled that Molineaux must hand over the knife and AK-47 that police found.
The former teacher was initially also accused of possessing images of minors, but the child porn charges he faced were "nolle prossed." That means prosecutors essentially dropped the charges, but could bring them back later. WTKR News 3 learned in court Tuesday that the charges weren't pursued because the pictures found in Molineaux's home were of women dressed as younger girls, not actual children.
Watch related: True Crime 757 takes on the case of Joseph Molineaux
WTKR has been following this story since Molineaux first trespassed onto Kempsville High's campus. Our investigator Margaret Kavanagh further uncovered issues with Molineaux over the roughly 24 years he was employed at various schools within the Virginia Beach City Public Schools district.
Of the numerous reprimands documented in files obtained by WTKR News 3, one outlines a report made about an incident where a student inadvertently saw a photo of Molineaux's genitals on the teacher's phone.
Documents show Molineaux retired in lieu of dismissal in February of 2023 due to the reported incident.
Molineaux's attorney tells News 3 he could potentially be getting out of jail relatively soon but a date was not specified.
