Fayette teachers' aide arrested on child pornography charges, placed on leave
A Fayette County Public Schools instructional assistant was arrested Friday on child pornography charges, according to court records.
William Adam Lyle, 42, was listed on the district website as working in special education at Lexington's Northern Elementary school.
'He was a paraeducator with FCPS and was placed on immediate administrative leave, ' district spokesperson Dia Davidson-Smith told the Herald-Leader Friday. She did not provide information about where Lyle worked.
Lyle's arrest citation -- shared with the Herald-Leader by WKYT --said he had been charged with possessing matter portraying sexual performance of a child under 12.
Lyle admitted to previously possessing known sexual assault images and videos that he acquired online and had saved to a hard drive and uploaded to an electronic service based cloud belonging to him, according to the citation.
The reported images depicted children under the age of 12 in various poses and acts of sexual performance. Lyle admitted to having deleted the images and videos after receiving a warning email shutting down his accounts, the citation said.
The Fayette County Detention Center website said Lyle remained there Friday night.
A September 2022 investigation by the Herald-Leader highlighted the problem of teacher sexual misconduct in Kentucky. The newspaper obtained 194 cases of teachers who voluntarily surrendered or had their license revoked or suspended from 2016 to 2021. Of those, 118 — 61% — lost their license due to sexual misconduct.
The Kentucky General Assembly in 2023 and 2024 failed to pass a bill that would that would strengthen a school's ability to prevent child sexual abuse by adult staff.
With two days left in the 2025 session, similar legislation, House Bill 36 sponsored by Rep. James Tipton, R-Taylorsville, has not passed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Yahoo
Lexington council approves $540 million city budget. Here's what's in it
The Lexington-Fayette Urban County Council unanimously passed a $540.2 million spending plan Thursday that includes money to improve sidewalks, millions for sewer system renovations and raises for most city employees. The budget is for the fiscal year that begins July 1, and includes no tax increases. It is the largest budget in the city's history, up 7% from two years ago, which was the first time the budget surpassed $500 million. Mayor Linda Gorton's budget proposal included $28.2 million for improvements to the city sewer system; 3% raises for all non-union city employees; $19.2 million for street improvement projects, like connecting sidewalks and installing new traffic lights; and $3.4 million for new snow plows and street salt. The council added nearly $1 million in additional spending. It added five positions, including an additional social worker for Lexington's Community Paramedicine Program and a deputy director of accounting. The total cost to add that staff is $305,508.32. Most of that money comes from decreasing spending in other budgeted areas, like lowering the cost of allotted overtime for the fire department. Gorton's budget included funding for 16.5 new positions. With council changes, the new budget has money for 21.5 new positions. 'I am always concerned when positions are added because the cost of salaries and benefits will continue in future budgets,' Gorton told the Herald-Leader. Last year, Gorton vetoed personnel expenses added by the council, but that was ultimately overridden. Gorton doesn't plan to make any vetoes this year, spokeswoman Susan Straub said. City council also added $500,000 to the budget for Lextran, the city's bus service, to run two pilot programs. The downtown connector pilot program will run a bus on weekends from 4 p.m. through midnight connecting downtown to the distillery district. A second pilot program will test micro-transit, a government-funded rideshare service — like Uber or Lyft — for trips where Lextran buses don't go. The budget uses $18 million in bonding or borrowing, the smallest debt since the COVID pandemic. That includes $6.2 million for new city, police and road management vehicles, and $3 million to design a new training facility for the Lexington Fire Department. The budget includes $14 million for paving, the same amount as last year's budget.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Miami mayor is lobbying behind the scenes for proposal to skip November election
Miami City Commissioner Damian Pardo is pushing forward with a controversial proposal to move the city's elections to even-numbered years through a City Commission vote, despite a new opinion from the Florida Attorney General's Office and a public rebuke from the governor, both saying the city needs to put the question out to voters instead. Pardo is the official sponsor of the hotly debated City Commission legislation, a measure that would involve skipping the upcoming November election and giving the city's current elected officials an extra year in office. But the Miami Herald has learned that, behind the scenes, Mayor Francis Suarez has been lobbying to push the proposal through. If the measure passes, Suarez — a former city commissioner who is reaching the end of his term limits as mayor — would get a 17th consecutive year in Miami City Hall. The Miami mayor doesn't have a vote on the five-member City Commission, but he does have veto power. Because he does not have a vote, Suarez has the ability to meet privately with city commissioners to discuss legislation and whip up support. The commissioners, on the other hand, are bound by Florida Sunshine Law, which prohibits them from discussing legislative matters with each other outside of a public meeting. In this case, Suarez's help may be essential to securing the three out of five votes needed to pass Pardo's proposal, which seeks to push the November election to 2026 through two City Commission votes, rather than letting voters weigh in via ballot referendum. To date, not a single city commissioner besides Pardo has publicly committed to voting in favor of it. Commissioners Joe Carollo and Miguel Angel Gabela told the Herald they oppose the change and will be voting no. Newly elected Commissioner Ralph Rosado said that while he generally supports moving to even-year elections, he hasn't made up his mind yet. Commissioner Christine King, the chairwoman of the commission, declined to comment publicly on her stance ahead of the June 17 meeting where the commission is slated to cast the first of two votes on the measure. (The meeting was originally set for June 12 but has since been rescheduled.) In need of two supporters on the dais to move his proposal forward, Pardo — who previously called for Suarez's resignation in late 2023 — has turned to the mayor for assistance. 'My general sense is that he thinks this is a good thing for Miami, and he has been willing to make those calls [at] my behest,' Pardo told the Herald. He said the mayor's goal is to 'garner support wherever possible.' 'Francis was involved from the beginning in order for us to find out if there was more support from the dais,' Pardo added. When was the beginning, exactly? Pardo said he's been discussing various reform measures with the mayor since around early 2024, shortly after Pardo was sworn in. As far as their recent conversations, Pardo estimated that he and the mayor have spoken about this particular issue three to four times in the last couple of months, including this week. Asked what has changed for Pardo since he called for Suarez's resignation in late 2023, Pardo cited the mayor's involvement in various city projects, including the Miami Marine Stadium development. 'He started doing his job,' Pardo said of Suarez, who declined to comment for this story. Pardo added that while the mayor is involved in pushing for the election date change, 'This is not about Francis.' 'I think that's the fallacy here,' Pardo said. 'I'm the one pushing the initiative.' Commissioners Rosado and Gabela both confirmed to the Herald that Suarez had discussed the proposal with them. While Gabela couldn't pinpoint exactly when the conversation took place, he said it happened 'a long time ago,' around when Pardo first introduced a separate proposal in April to introduce stricter term limits for elected officials — weeks before the proposal to push back the election was known about publicly. Seeking more information on the legality of Pardo's proposal to delay the November 2025 election, Gabela asked for advice from the Florida Attorney General's Office, which issued a written opinion Wednesday saying the city cannot push its election back to 2026 without voter approval. 'My mind is made up,' Gabela said in light of the Attorney General's opinion. 'I'm a no.' Nevertheless, in a statement Thursday responding to the Attorney General's opinion, Pardo indicated he plans to go full steam ahead: 'We are confident that this reform is both legal and necessary for the benefit of future generations of Miamians.' Gabela's opposition makes Commissioner King a key vote to passing Pardo's proposal. But the Attorney General's opinion could create uncertainty for King, an attorney who has previously expressed concern at commission meetings about passing legislation that might not meet legal muster. At a meeting in March, for example, King directed the city attorney to flag proposed legislation that 'clearly flies in the face of the law.' 'As a practitioner, although I am not representing myself as an attorney, but as an elected official here on this dais, I can still be held responsible by the Florida Bar if I pass any legislation that is not legal,' King said at the meeting, adding: 'I'm not voting on anything that I know is not legal.' City Attorney George Wysong has said that the commission has the authority to move the election date under Florida law, and Pardo has pointed to two Miami-Dade cities that have done so already: Coral Gables and North Miami. Unlike the Miami proposal, Coral Gables officials shortened their terms instead of extending them. The stated purpose of Pardo's legislation is to move the city to even-year elections, which could increase the city's typically low voter turnout and also save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars in election costs. Miami residents have generally expressed support for moving to even years, and the mayor has also been a proponent of the change in the past. But another benefit to the election date change is that — in a roundabout matter — it clears the way for Pardo's other reform measure, a proposal to create lifetime term limits for elected officials. Although the two proposals — even-year elections and lifetime term limits — are different items that will be voted on separately, they've become linked for both practical and political reasons. Currently, elected officials in Miami are limited to two four-year terms as mayor and two four-year terms as a commissioner, but they are allowed to return to the same position a few years later. Under Pardo's term limits proposal, elected officials would be capped at two terms in each position for their lifetime. In its current form, that legislation would block Suarez from seeking elected office in Miami again. It would also block Carollo from office since he has already served at least two terms as both mayor and a commissioner, and it would keep his younger brother, former City Commissioner Frank Carollo, from running for the City Commission again. Frank Carollo has already filed to run for the District 3 City Commission seat — currently occupied by his brother — in November, and Joe Carollo has long been mulling another run for mayor. The issue is that the term limits proposal would need to go to voters for approval, and Pardo is aiming to get it on the ballot in November, when residents are scheduled to head to the polls to vote in three races: mayor, District 3 commissioner and District 5 commissioner. But that timing could create legal roadblocks, according to Pardo, because the term limits proposal would be on the same ballot as candidates who would be affected by it. For example, if Frank Carollo or Joe Carollo win in the November election and the term limits proposal also passes and invalidates their victories, they could have standing to sue the city. Why can't the term limits proposal just go on the ballot next year instead? Pardo said he didn't want to risk changes to the 'composition' of the City Commission as a result of the November election that could thwart his efforts. In other words, come November, he might not have the votes for it, depending on who wins. 'I don't want to run that risk of the reshuffling of the cards,' Pardo said. Pardo added that while he is concerned about the possibility of Joe Carollo becoming mayor in November, 'none of this was targeted at anybody.' Carollo sees it differently. 'Damian Pardo and the people that own him are petrified that I might decide to run for mayor,' Carollo said, ' ... because they don't feel they can beat me, and they certainly know that my brother — they have nobody to beat him, either.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Separated from kids in Cuba and Haiti by Trump travel ban, parents plead for help
As Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits come to terms with what a new U.S. travel ban means for their families' hopes to reunite, many have flocked to social media in anguish — including children — seeking help. 'President Trump, I ask you to please reconsider family reunification for residents,' said a 10-year-old in a Hello Kitty T-shirt in a video she recorded in Havana. The video was published by her mother, Lia Llanes, a U.S. permanent resident living in Miami, in one of the several Facebook groups where Cubans are discussing the new prohibitions. 'I am a child who, like many others, is waiting for an interview to reunite with our parents so we can grow up in this beautiful country and become a citizen,' the child says in the video. 'With great pride, I ask you again, please reconsider. And I ask God to enlighten you. Thank you.' The child had been taking English lessons, preparing for a new life in the United States, which she thought was just days away, Llanes told the Herald. The petition to bring her daughter to the U.S. had just been approved in late May, and the family was just waiting for the visa interview at the U.S. embassy in Havana, the final step in a lengthy process to legally emigrate to the United States. Then President Donald Trump announced last week a travel ban suspending the issuing of immigrant visas to Cuban relatives of U.S. permanent residents, upending the plans of many families to reunite. 'It's very heartbreaking to know that your claim is approved and this happens,' said Llanes, who runs a small business and obtained a green card after being paroled at the U.S. border in 2022. She said her daughter spent two days 'without talking to anyone' after learning the bad news. 'It's hard to explain,' she said. 'It's strange because you have your daughter there, and you're here, and one minute, you have good news, and then the next, everything changes.' Trump's new ban restricts travel for most citizens of Cuba, Venezuela and five other countries while also placing Haiti and 11 other nations on a full ban. It's a distressing blow to families who had already been waiting years to reunite in the United States. Standing in a room full of boxes with the beds she hoped her children would sleep on when they join her in the United States, Clara Riera, a U.S. permanent resident, could barely contain her tears as she recounted how she felt after learning about the travel ban. 'I no longer have a life,' she said in a video she published on Facebook. Riera came to the United States in 2019 from Cuba, and has her own small cleaning company in Tampa, she told the Herald. Like Llanes' daughter, her children, now 16, 17, and 19, were also waiting for the visa interview at the U.S. Embassy in Havana. But their arrival had become an urgent matter because her own mother, who has been caring for Riera's three children in Granma, a province in eastern Cuba, has metastatic cancer. Adding to her desperation is that a Cuban doctor told her that due to the stress caused by their separation, her eldest now has a heart condition. 'I hope that the people at the top, those who sign and pass the laws, also take into account that we, permanent residents, also have our children in a prison country, and we want to have them here with us,' she said, her voice breaking in the video. 'At least they should take into account that there are children who aren't going to come here to commit terrorism or harm this country.' Trump hits Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti with travel bans amid immigration crackdown The ban, announced last Wednesday, suspends immigration visas for adult children of U.S. citizens and relatives of U.S. permanent residents from the 19 countries included in the executive order. Only the immediate relatives of U.S. citizens–parents, spouses, parents and minor children will be allowed to enter the United States under a directive the White House said will 'protect the United States from foreign terrorists and other national security and public safety threats.' Cubans, Haitians and Venezuelans with visas issued before June 8 will still be able to travel to the United States. But on Monday, some relatives of U.S. permanent residents who attended scheduled visa interviews at the U.S. embassy in Havana were issued a document in Spanish stating they were not 'eligible for an immigrant visa' under the new directive, a decision they could not appeal. The document also stated that their cases did not merit an exception, citing U.S. national security interests. The State Department did not say if applicants whose immigration visas were denied solely based on the new travel restrictions would have a chance down the line to present their case again. It also did not say if cases involving young children would fall under exceptions the Secretary of State can make on a case-by-case basis. But an agency spokesperson said, 'Urgent humanitarian medical travel may be considered a basis for such an exception. Only applicants otherwise qualified for a visa will be considered.' On Wednesday, a mother with a Miami cellphone number joined a WhatsApp chat group for Cubans with pending immigration cases, wanting to know if anyone had heard of a child being denied an immigration visa at the U.S. embassy in Havana. Her child has a scheduled interview later this week. 'I am just talking to him, and he is so innocent, so oblivious about all this, and he will be very happy tomorrow at his appointment,' she said, crying in a voice message. One of the group's most active commenters replied: 'God is great. Perhaps when they see that little boy in there, they would approve it.' Many families left separated by the ban were part of a historic exodus from Cuba, Haiti and Venezuela in recent years. In introducing the travel ban, Trump partly blamed the Biden administration for allowing more than a half million Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans into the United States under a humanitarian parole program that allowed nationals of the four nations to migrate to the U.S. for two years as long as they had a financial sponsor, passed background checks and arrived through an airport. But part of the reason so many people from the four countries took advantage of the program, known as CHNV, stems from legal immigration hurdles and restrictive policies introduced by Trump during his first term. Among other things, his administration suspended the Cuba Family Reunification Program and a similar one for Haitians. During those years, U.S. embassies in the three countries either suspended visa processing or scaled back appointments, preventing people from immigrating legally while their populations faced political and humanitarian crises, which contributed to the historic exodus Trump is now citing. Since Trump signed his proclamation last Wednesday, Cubans in the U.S. and on the island have been debating and sharing information about the new immigration restrictions on several groups on WhatsApp and Facebook. Many are praying for a 'miracle' as they share their stories and give each other hope that the ban might be temporary. The directive states that after three months of its enactment, the President will review the recommendations by the Secretary of State regarding whether to continue the restrictions on nationals of the targeted countries. A review will be conducted every six months thereafter. But the lifting of restrictions relies on the foreign governments improving 'their information-sharing and identity-management protocols and practices.' So far, the Cuban government has not signaled it is interested in improving its cooperation with the U.S. and instead attacked Secretary of State Marco Rubio. After the travel ban was announced, Cuba's foreign minister said the measure 'aims to deceive the American people, blaming and violating the rights of migrants. Anti-Cuban politicians, including the Secretary of State, are the main proponents of this measure, betraying the communities that elected them.' Trump's proclamation also notes Cuba remains on the U.S. list of countries that sponsor terrorism. The ban also comes at especially difficult time for Haitians in a country wracked by gang violence. In a statement, Haiti's U.S.-backed Transitional Presidential Council said it plans to 'initiate negotiations and technical discussions' with the Trump administration in order to remove Haiti from the targeted countries. This is likely a tall order considering that more than 1.3 million Haitians remain displaced and armed gangs, now in control of most of Port-au-Prince, have made it difficult to circulate, raising questions about authorities' ability to improve vetting procedures and information sharing with the U.S. For Haiti, the ban prohibits the entry of all of its nationals unless they fall under the few exceptions contemplated in the new directive. Like many Haitians who arrived back in the U.S. on the first day of the travel ban, Eraus Alzime, 71, didn't fully understand its impact. The father of 10 was in Haiti visiting his children when he received a call urging him to get back to the U.S. To get out, he had to travel by bus and went through three gang checkpoints, he said. 'Of course you feel panicked,' Alzime said. 'The bandits make you get off so that they check your suitcases and see what you are carrying. You don't have a choice, you have to do it, if you don't you can end up dead.' Alzime, a U.S. citizen, said he applied for six of his children to emigrate to the U.S legally. The oldest is 43 years-old while the youngest is 14. His adult children won't be able to travel to the United States under the current ban. 'I filed for my kids and they've yet to give them to me,' he said. A victim of the country's incessant violence, Alizme says he has no choice but to travel to Haiti for his kids. 'I have to go see how they are doing,' he said. As the news about the travel ban sinks in, parents worry about the psychological toll the prolonged separation will have on their children, especially those who are too young to grasp immigration policy. Gleydys Sarda, 26, and her husband took the difficult decision to flee Cuba and left their 3-year-old son under the care of his grandparents in 2022. They didn't want to expose him to what they knew could be a dangerous land journey to the U.S. Southern border, she said. Now, he is 6 years-old, under the care of a grandparent and increasingly anxious to be with his parents. 'We live depressed because of the long wait; we ran out of excuses to tell him when he asks why he cannot be with us,' said Sardá, who is a U.S. permanent resident and works for Amazon at a warehouse in Coral Springs. 'Lately, he has been repeating more than ever that he wants to be here, that he is tired of waiting, and now this restriction broke our hearts. We have no other way.' Sardá's visa petition to bring him to the United States has yet to be approved. The couple tried to bring him using the special parole program created by the Biden administration, but they never heard back from U.S. immigration authorities. Sardá, who is currently pregnant, frets at the idea of traveling to Cuba to see her child, which currently seems to be her only choice to spend time with him, if only for a short time. The last time she visited in January, 'the goodbye was too hard. When we are there, the three of us are very happy, but after we leave,I feel I leave him worse,' she said. Sarda said the boy got depressed after they left, 'and so do we. I was in bed and didn´t want to go to work or leave the house.' 'Now I am also expecting my second child, and it would break my heart to go to Cuba with one child, return with one and leave the other in Cuba.'
