This article was updated at 2 p.m. April 20, 2023, to include additional information about a 2018 conviction against Daughtry in Washington, D.C.
A man who previously served time in prison for an armed robbery and pleaded guilty in 2019 to sexual solicitation has been charged with showing pornographic images to a 13-year-old boy he was supervising in his role as a security officer with Montgomery County Public Schools.
On March 23, an arrest warrant was issued for Varvie Daughtry, 36, related to charges of alleged child sex abuse at Earle B. Wood Middle School in Rockville.
Daughtry has been charged with one count of sex abuse of a minor and one count of displaying obscene material to a minor, both arising from an incident that occurred on or about Nov. 30, 2022, according to charging documents. No defense attorney information is listed in the case records.
The police investigation began in early December, when a Special Victims Investigations Unit detective received a report of an alleged sexual abuse involving a 13-year-old male victim that occurred during school hours.
The student had been involved in an altercation at school on Nov. 26 and was ordered to spend the following day under supervision in School Intervention, a disciplinary in-school method of suspension, according to the detective’s report. The student told a forensic examiner that Daughtry was assigned to be his supervisor that day, and that there was no one else present in the classroom. The student said he asked Daughtry about his job, and Daughtry told him that he also worked as a security guard in a D.C. nightclub.
According to the detective’s report, the alleged victim reported that Daughtry proceeded to show him images and videos on his cell phone of nude women and people engaging in sexual intercourse. In addition, the report says Daughtry showed images of women he had dated and told the victim that he “hit that.” The victim “stated that he felt uncomfortable with the images he had seen and knew that the images were inappropriate,” the report reads.
In March 2023, the same detective reviewed images retrieved from Daughtry’s cell phone under a search warrant. He observed numerous images that matched the victim’s description, including “multiple images of nude women, with breasts and vaginas exposed, exactly in the same manner described by [the victim].”
In March 2019 D.C. case records show Daughtry pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sexual solicitation and served an unknown amount of time after sentencing.
Daughtry also served time in prison related to a 2004 armed robbery that occurred in Montgomery County when he was 18, according to Maryland case records. A district court judge transferred the charges to juvenile court given Daughtry’s age at the time.
Daughtry’s memories of his time in prison appeared in a 2016 article for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, in which he described the complex harms that can come from youth incarceration.
“You’re making it worse by [sending] a juvenile to a prison system or a lockup, instead of sending them to a decent, strict learning center,” he is quoted as saying. “Behind bars, the thought of being locked up—it destroys a child’s dreams.”
According to the article, Daughtry said he spent nine and a half months in adult prison, alone in a small cell with “nothing to do but exercise and read.” Once he was released, he said, he experienced difficulty finding employment in the D.C. area because of his criminal record.
Daughtry was held without bond in district court on Wednesday after his arrest on charges of alleged sex abuse, according to Lauren DeMarco, spokesperson for the State’s Attorney’s Office.
When reached for comment, MCPS spokesperson Jessica Baxter wrote to MoCo360:
“While we cannot comment because this is a personnel matter, these alleged actions do not represent values of Montgomery County Public Schools.”
Baxter did not disclose how long Daughtry had been employed by MCPS or if his employment had been terminated following the alleged incident.
