WIMBERLEY, Texas – A federal civil rights lawsuit filed earlier this year accuses school district and law enforcement personnel in Hays County of conspiring to destroy the teaching career of an instructor at Danforth Junior High School.
The suit, filed Sept. 25 in Austin, states that the 20-year teaching career of David Schachter was ruined after he was falsely accused of inappropriately touching two female students in a crowded Wimberley Independent School District classroom in 2022.
“He’s lost his career. His family’s financial circumstances have been forever changed because of this,” said Rebecca Webber, Schachter’s civil rights attorney.
Schachter, who had worked for the school for only a few weeks, had counseled one of the girls for bullying near the beginning of the semester, Child Protective Services records show.
The girl’s behavior continued and she was sent to the principal’s office, the records show.
Days later, in early September 2022, the girl told a school counselor that Schachter had touched her inappropriately, according to CPS records.
A second female student in the class made a similar outcry, records show.
Additional complaints and “rumors” about Schachter then began to come into the district via email, including from “parents and students that are not even in the class or taught by Mr. Schachter,” the report shows.
Schachter told KSAT that within weeks the accusations exploded and resulted in false allegations that he had tucked one girl’s hair behind her ear and rubbed the other girl’s butt and attempted to unclip her bra under her shirt.
“All in a crowded classroom with a co-teacher. Absolutely none of which ever happened,” said Schachter, who eventually resigned his position.
Schachter’s wife, Dr. Nicole Taylor, said she was forced to leave a sabbatical in northern California amid fears that the couple’s young son would be taken from Schachter’s care.
“While it was all unfolding I was there and David was here. And once things started to really heat up and the police officer showed up at the door, I got back here as quickly as I could,” Taylor said.
Schachter was eventually criminally charged with two counts of misdemeanor assault-offensive touching.
CPS initially ruled it had reason to believe Schachter committed sexual abuse on one of the girls, while ruling out sexual abuse of the other girl, records show.
Additionally, the Texas Education Agency placed Schachter’s educator certificate under review.
“There was this cascade of negative consequences that came out of these initial lies,” Webber said.
The case falls apart
Schachter’s lawsuit and an administrative review of CPS’ initial findings points out several issues with the criminal case against him.
Investigators waited two weeks after the initial outcry of abuse to have the girls take part in forensic interviews.
“They waited more than two weeks to take these girls in and do what they should have done the day that (School Resource Officer Deputy) Ashley Martinez and (then-Danforth JHS principal) Christi Moeller sat in their office chuckling about this,” said Webber, referring to footage recorded by Martinez’s body-worn camera in Sept. 2022.
“Spinning up this thing that just really started as this childish complaint. And the school resource officer takes it and runs with it,” Webber said.
KSAT viewed multiple body-worn camera videos recorded by Martinez during her September 2022 investigation.
In one of the videos, Martinez tells Moeller it is important that an information report be created so other school resource officers can look it up if Schachter goes to work somewhere else in Hays County.
In the same clip, Moeller states that it is difficult to get rid of Schachter because he is under contract.
“I almost think that he would have to be charged to get him out of here,” Martinez said in the footage.
Two days later, while recording herself speaking with one of the girls, Martinez told her Schachter had done this before at other campuses.
“This is not new for him,” said Martinez. “No one will ever find out what he did. If he moves out of here and moves to Plano or somewhere, or goes to California or Florida, we’ll never know what he did. And then the same thing happens over again,” said Martinez, while telling the girl what could happen if no one pursued criminal charges.
That same day Martinez told the girl’s mother during a phone call recorded on the deputy’s body camera that Schachter has done this at other places where he has worked.
Days later, while speaking to the mother of the other girl, Martinez again said that Schachter had done this before at another school.
The suit, which alleges Schachter was wrongfully arrested and maliciously prosecuted, also points out that Martinez and the detective assigned to the case failed to interview Schachter’s co-teacher.
She later told a CPS investigator that she had not witnessed Schachter act physically or sexually inappropriate or say anything sexually inappropriate to any of his students, records show.
Law enforcement, according to the same records, also failed to interview any other student in the class.
One of the girls was interviewed several times before a report was even filed with CPS or the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, records show.
A statement written by that girl did not match what she said during her subsequent forensic interview, state records show.
“Possibly damaged future children who make legitimate outcries who might not be taken seriously because of this travesty,” said Webber, referring to issues in the criminal case pointed out in the suit.
Following a day-long trial in September 2023, Schachter was found not guilty by a Hays County jury.
CPS officials then reversed the finding of sexual abuse against Schachter in early April.
Reached by telephone, the father of one of the girls told KSAT, “it was not wanted touching,” and added that he believed his daughter and believed Martinez did what she could in the time that she had to work on the case.
The suit, which lists Martinez, Moeller, the detective and three Hays County Sheriff’s Office supervisors, also names Jessica Rabena, the Hays County assistant district attorney who brought the case to trial.
The suit states Rabena agreed to knowingly prosecute an innocent person despite being given false statements and false probable cause affidavits from investigators.
Rabena did not respond to an email from KSAT seeking comment for this story.
Moeller, who now works as Wimberley ISD’s director of safety and school initiatives, thanked KSAT for contacting her about the suit but wrote that she would not be releasing a comment.
Both Wimberley ISD and the Hays County Sheriff’s Office declined to comment for this story.
“We sued everyone in the chain that led to the wrongful arrest and the malicious prosecution because each of them contributed by their own misconduct or lack of action to what happened to David,” Webber said.
What comes next?
Schachter got the records from his case expunged, but told KSAT it was a “useless” step because he still appears in so many stories on the internet.
“My experience was that of an actual sexual predator. People saw me that way. People interacted with me that way,” said Schachter, who recalled being afraid to leave his house the first six months of the ordeal, receiving threats and one incident in which Taylor was verbally accosted by a neighbor.
Now that CPS has reversed its finding against Schachter, he is now attempting to get the TEA to end its review of his educator certificate.
A TEA spokesman told KSAT Schachter remains under review by the TEA’s Educator Investigations Division but that he could not comment otherwise.
Read more reporting on the KSAT Investigates page.