A former Bridgeport Independent School District athletic trainer was sentenced to 12 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to five counts of soliciting sex from a child online, capping a case that began when a civilian decoy group posed as a 12-year-old girl to catch him. William Lawrence “Billy” Newsom, 62, had spent two decades working around student athletes at Bridgeport ISD before his arrest in April 2024 upended a career that stretched back to 1998.
According to Texas Scorecard, Newsom arranged to meet someone he believed was a 12-year-old girl for sex and sent her sexually explicit messages, only to discover the account belonged to an adult decoy working with Predator Poachers. The group, which uses adult volunteers posing as underage targets to identify and record suspected predators online, turned its collected evidence over to local authorities once the confrontation was captured on video.
Predator Poachers founder Alex Rosen announced the sentencing outside the Wise County courthouse Monday, but the quoted statement about the group's initial investigation referred to Newsom's 2025 arrest rather than clearly to the sentencing announcement, per the same outlet's report. Rosen said Newsom admitted during the group's confrontation to having viewed child sexual abuse material showing victims as young as 6 years old, and credited the decoys' work directly for the 12-year sentence.
Weeks of Forensic Work Before an Arrest
Newsom's arrest didn't come immediately after the civilian sting. Bridgeport Police Chief Steve Stanford has said local authorities deliberately waited until they received official forensic validation of a crime on April 16, 2024, before moving in, a delay explained in a report by the Wise County Messenger. Bridgeport police worked alongside the Texas Rangers and the U.S. Secret Service Forensic Division, along with the Wise County District Attorney's Office, before a Wise County grand jury indicted Newsom in October 2024 on five counts of online solicitation of a minor under age 14 — a second-degree felony punishable by two to 20 years in prison.
That caution reflects a broader tension playing out across Texas and beyond, as police departments weigh the public-safety value of civilian decoy tips against the legal risks of using them in court. The Harlingen Police Department has publicly stressed that evidence gathered in civilian vigilante stings must meet strict search and chain-of-custody standards to hold up at trial, according to The Hawk's Eye. Under Texas law, criminal solicitation under Texas Penal Code § 15.031 is distinct from the online solicitation of a minor offense charged against Newsom; the legal source notes that criminal solicitation can be complete without action by the minor, but does not establish that rule for Newsom's separate online-solicitation charges.
A Separate Case That Didn't Survive
Newsom's legal troubles briefly expanded beyond the solicitation charges. In May 2025, he was indicted on separate charges accusing him of sexually assaulting a disabled student in 2002 and 2004, according to Texas Scorecard's reporting. Court records were unsealed the following month, as detailed by the Wise County Messenger in a separate report. Those separate sexual-assault charges were ultimately dropped in 2025, leaving his 12-year sentence tied solely to the online solicitation guilty plea. Character witnesses testified on Newsom's behalf during the proceedings, per Texas Scorecard.
Major felony cases out of Wise County, including those investigated by Bridgeport police, are typically adjudicated through the 271st Judicial District Court in Decatur, which serves both Wise and Jack counties, according to the Messenger's local reporting.
A Lifetime Certificate, Automatically Revoked
Newsom had held a lifetime Texas teaching certificate since 1985, a credential whose status is governed by state law. Under Texas Education Code § 21.058 and Texas Occupations Code § 53.021, the State Board for Educator Certification is required to automatically revoke an educator's certificate upon imprisonment following a felony conviction, according to the Texas Education Agency. Texas school districts also undergo continuous fingerprint-based monitoring through the Department of Public Safety, which automatically flags new arrests to state licensing officials, the agency notes separately.
Rosen framed Newsom's case as part of a pattern his group has exposed inside public education, telling reporters that public schools are “infested” and that Predator Poachers helps clean them up. He pointed to Mark Mallow, whom Predator Poachers caught in a 2023 sex solicitation sting and who received a 131-year sentence, as an earlier example of the group's work leading to a severe prison term. The Texas Education Agency has said it is currently investigating more than 3,000 sexual misconduct complaints involving educators statewide and opens an average of 250 new cases each month, per Texas Scorecard's reporting.
Part of a Wider Pattern
Newsom's case is among several involving evidence gathered and handed over by Predator Poachers. Hoodline has previously reported on a similar case in North Carolina, along with arrests tied to the same civilian tip pipeline in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wise County itself, where a 40-year-old resident was booked in July on first-degree child pornography charges following a DPS device review. Legal experts continue to debate how far civilian sting evidence can go in court, but for Newsom, the outcome was a guilty plea, a 12-year sentence, and a lifetime teaching credential whose status was not established.
