Former GMC teacher arrested on charges of inappropriate sexual contact with minor<\/p>\n
Published 6:14 pm Friday, April 24, 2026<\/p>\n
Michael Talton-Lee Barnes, a former teacher and coach at Georgia Military College Prep School, was arrested this week on charges of inappropriate sexual contact with a minor.<\/p>\n
And he is no longer employed at the school.<\/p>\n
The 24-year-old Barnes, was taken into custody at a residence in Putnam County on Thursday afternoon by Georgia Bureau of Investigation Special Agent Amanda Hammock, according to Mary Chandler, special agent in-charge of the GBI Region 6 Office in Milledgeville.<\/p>\n
Hammock was accompanied by Baldwin County Sheriff\u2019s Office Deputy Sgt. Samuel Robinson and Detective Chris Youngblood.<\/p>\n
Barnes, who recently moved to the Haddock community in Jones County, was charged with four counts of child molestation and one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes, Chandler told The Union-Recorder.<\/p>\n
After his arrest, Barnes was taken from Putnam County to Baldwin County and booked into the Baldwin County Law Enforcement Center jail.<\/p>\n
Chandler said the GBI was requested to investigate allegations that Barnes had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor. She said the request to look into those allegations came from the GMC Police Department.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe preliminary investigation revealed Barnes was having sexual contact with a minor at a church in Milledgeville,\u201d Chandler said, noting the investigation remains active and ongoing.<\/p>\n
Barnes, a 2019 graduate of GMC Prep, was an 8th-grade physical education teacher, an assistant coach with the school\u2019s varsity football program and head baseball coach at the middle school.<\/p>\n
Jobie Shields, associate vice president of communications and government affairs at GMC, issued the following statement Friday afternoon:<\/p>\n
\u201cGeorgia Military College is aware of the arrest of a former Prep School employee in connection with allegations involving a minor. The alleged conduct occurred off campus and did not involve school-sponsored activities. Upon first learning of the allegation, the institution conducted an initial review and immediately terminated the employee and removed them from campus. The safety and well-being of our schools remain our highest priority. Georgia Military College is cooperating fully with local law enforcement as their investigation continues.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ocmulgee Judicial Circuit District Attorney T. Wright Barksdale III told the newspaper Thursday night that he had recused himself from the case, as had his staff, due to conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n
Once the investigation is completed by the GBI, the case file will then be sent to the Towaliga Judicial Circuit District Attorney\u2019s Office for the possibility of prosecution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former GMC teacher arrested on charges of inappropriate sexual contact with minor Published 6:14 pm Friday, April 24,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-605137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}