22-03-2025
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.
