After a former coach at Pinewood Christian Academy pled guilty last week to charges related to inappropriate contact with students, the Evans County Clerk of Court worked to keep the documentation from the public eye.
Joshua Garret Blaxton was arrested in April 2024 following an investigation by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. That investigation followed a request for assistance by the Evans County Sheriff’s Office. The GBI said in a press release that the explicit text messages, which included nude photographs, were sent while he was employed at the school. Blaxton was booked into the Tattnall County Jail on April 19 and he was held without bond until the end of July. Blaxton resigned from his position at the school while the GBI was still investigating the initial allegations. On July 26, Judge Mark Hendrix set a bond for Blaxton because the case had not yet been indicted and Georgia requires a bond be set for defendants after 90 days of pre-trial detention.
Blaxton’s case was presented to an Evans County Grand Jury in September of 2024 and the grand jury returned a True Bill of Indictment on each of the charges from the warrants and four additional charges.
- Count 1: Criminal Attempt to Commit Enticing Child (max possible sentence is 15 years)
- Count 2: Sexual Contact by a Person in a Position of Trust in the First Degree (max possible sentence is 30 years and $100,000 fine)
- Count 3: Sexual Battery Against a Child Under 16 (max possible sentence is 5 years)
- Count 4: Cruelty to Children in the Second Degree (max possible sentence is 20 years)
- Count 5: Computer Child Exploitation (max possible sentence is 20 years and $25,000 fine)
- Count 6: Criminal Attempt to Commit Improper Sexual Contact by Employee (max possible sentence is 15 years and $50,000 fine)
- Count 7: Sexual Contact by a Person in a Position of Trust in the First Degree (max possible sentence is 25 years and $100,000 fine)
Blaxton faced 130 years in prison and upwards of $275,000 were he to be found guilty at trial.
Public Documents Kept from Public Portals
Blaxton quietly entered a guilty plea on Tuesday during a court proceeding that was listed by the clerk’s office as a ‘status hearing’ for the case.
The court documents detailing the plea were not immediately available and the case file did not reflect that a plea had been entered until Friday afternoon. Still, the case file had no details, relevant documents, or notations for the plea agreement. Traditionally, in the Atlantic circuit and surrounding judicial circuits, details of any court proceedings and their corresponding documents are uploaded to the case file in next-to-real time.
The only indication of his plea was a jail website notation which indicated Blaxton was again behind bars and awaiting transport to the Georgia Department of Corrections.
Notably, the relevant court documents in this case have been kept from the public since its initiation. The warrants, first appearance documentation, and other preliminary files were not filed in the case management system on the public side or in the public court filing system PeachCourt. Former Evans County Clerk of Court Kathy Hendrix told TGV at the time that it was the practice of her office in “cases like this” in the event that the charges do not make it to the indictment process. In order to obtain the warrants, Hendrix inquired as to who was asking for the public records and ‘for what purpose.’ Hendrix retired at the end of 2024.
When pressed about the availability of Blaxton’s plea documentation on January 8, newly sworn Clerk of Court Sheila Blackburn told TGV that she did not have the plea agreement and she was waiting on it to be provided to her by the probation office. When pressed about when that would be, she indicated she did not know. But the time-stamped copy of the plea agreement ultimately made available to the public on January 14 shows it was officially filed by the Clerk’s office at 10:23 a.m. on January 7, 2025 – the same day the plea was entered. Each and every page of the plea agreement shows a copy with the same time stamp.
Plea Agreement
According to public court documents, the negotiated plea was offered to Blaxton on September 17, 2024 and agreed upon by Blaxton in December. Judge Mark Hendrix signed the agreement on January 7, 2025.
Blaxton was ultimately sentenced to three years in prison followed by seventeen years on probation, and a $1,000 fine.
He entered a guilty plea on all seven counts and each sentence was ordered to be served concurrently.
- Count 1: 3 years confinement, 12 years probation
- Count 2: 3 years confinement, 17 years probation concurrent to Count 1
- Count 3: 3 years confinement, 2 years probation concurrent to Count 1
- Count 4: 3 years confinement, 17 years probation concurrent to Count 1
- Count 5: 3 years confinement, 17 years probation concurrent to Count 1
- Count 6: 3 years confinement, 12 years probation concurrent to Count 1
- Count 7: 3 years confinement, 17 years probation concurrent to Count 1
Blaxton must also register as a sex offender upon his release, will be prohibited from possessing or owning a firearm, will be subject to a curfew, cannot consume alcohol, and will waive his Fourth Amendment rights during the term of his probation. Finally, Blaxton will be barred from using the internet for the duration of his probation and cannot participate in any Halloween or Trick or Treating activity.
