Key records in sex abuse case against San Ramon teacher Nicholas Moseby are missing
DANVILLE – Key records have disappeared in the 2022 internal investigation of a San Ramon Valley High School teacher accused of improper conduct with students, blocking attempts to understand how school administrators exonerated a man whom prosecutors later charged with child molestation-related crimes.
The missing records include details of some of the first student complaints of inappropriate touching against Nicholas Moseby, 41, a former biology teacher and cheerleading coach now facing multiple charges including lewd acts upon a child, sending a lewd video to a girl and molesting or annoying a minor, an attorney representing some of the alleged victims told this news organization.
The accounts could shed critical light on whether school officials violated state mandatory reporting laws by failing to alert authorities to Moseby’s behavior, months before parents of a girl taking cheer lessons from Moseby went to police.
District Superintendent John Malloy, in an interview, acknowledged a complete investigative report cannot be located and that officials only discovered the files were missing after Moseby’s arrest, when the Contra Costa District Attorney’s Office requested files.
The school district already was facing questions about its hiring practices — Moseby passed a background check despite having a criminal record — and how thoroughly it investigated claims students made against Moseby. Now, Malloy has said the district is reviewing its record-keeping procedures.
“It is concerning that the school cannot locate the files,” Malloy said. “I can confirm that from this situation we are working vigilantly to strengthen our existing procedures related to investigations and documentation.”
The high school hired Moseby for the 2021 fall semester to teach biology, despite red flags. Moseby had disclosed a 2009 arrest in Arizona in which he was accused of supplying alcohol to a minor, but failed to notify the district of a 2015 charge that he solicited a sex worker in Oakland, officials have acknowledged.
Moseby was arrested in September and some of the charges he is facing stem from the same allegations San Ramon Valley High administrators investigated. Last month, a Contra Costa judge found there is sufficient evidence to move the case to a trial. Moseby bailed out of the Martinez jail on Dec. 29.
Not all of the records involving Moseby are missing. Within his first two months at San Ramon Valley High, two freshmen girls filed a complaint in October 2021 accusing him of whispering “you are lucky you guys are hot,” outside of a classroom, records show. More complaints followed, including in February and March 2022 from a parent alleging he behaved inappropriately with their child.
Documents this news organization obtained through a public records request also show school administrators accepted Moseby’s denial of the accusations over the students, did not notify the district or authorities of the allegations and kept him in the classroom. He was transferred to neighboring Diablo Vista Middle School after the spring 2022 semester.
But key details of what the school knew when, and what it did, remain obscured.
The tale of the missing documents began after Nicole Chaplan, the high school’s vice principal, left the district in June 2022 to take a position as principal of Stanley Middle School in Lafayette. Chaplan took the lead on investigating students complaints about Moseby, despite having a potential conflict of interest. She was a personal reference for Moseby when he applied and got the San Ramon Valley High teaching job. Chaplan apparently knew him from his work as a local cheer coach at Nor*Cal Elites.
Chaplan claims she left the records in her office, Malloy said, but they have not been located. Asked at her home about the files, Chaplan declined comment and told a reporter to leave her property.
If found, the records would be useful to the criminal prosecution of Moseby, Contra Costa prosecutors have said in court records.
The situation has raised alarms about whether school officials broke state law by not contacting police about the multiple complaints from students. In California, teachers and school administrators are considered mandated reporters and are required to immediately report suspected abuse to authorities. But in the absence of the detailed records, it is not clear what the school had reason to suspect.
Jason Runckle, an attorney representing Moseby’s alleged victims, said in an interview the records in question include written reports made by at least one high school student about Moseby inappropriately giving them massages in class. In one instance, the touching was captured in a photo taken by another student in the classroom, Runckle said.
When asked if the District Attorney had opened any investigation into whether SRVUSD violated mandatory reporting obligations, a Contra Costa District Attorney spokesman said the office could not comment because of the ongoing prosecution. It is a misdemeanor and punishable by up to six months in jail to fail to make a required report.
The missing documents have added to the frustration and anger of parents whose daughters filed written complaints against the teacher, Runckle said.
In an interview, the parents of one of the Moseby’s alleged victims accused Chaplan of “dismissing and shaming” their daughter when she came forward with multiple complaints about the Moseby in the 2021-2022 school year, only to be ignored. That prompted the parents to email campus administation demanding action.
“I was talking about how (my daughter) felt and how she felt unsafe in that room. So definitely, it should have not been overlooked,” the mother said. Before the end of the semester, the student dropped out of Moseby’s class, said the parents, who are not being named to protect the identity of their daughter.
The parents said they went to the Danville school in early 2022 to discuss Moseby’s actions with Principal Whitney Cottrell, who said the reports were part of a documented file.
After the teacher’s arrest, the girl told her father, “I told everybody what was happening and they never did anything,” her dad recounted. “I told them and I told and I told them and they never did anything.”
Under district policy, school officials are not required to send complaints against teachers that may qualify as sexual harassment to the district level, although reports of actual abuse would require alerting the district. The only case involving Moseby that Chaplan kicked up to the superintendent’s office was an investigation that some male students harassed the teacher in spring 2022 by putting a picture on his classroom door calling him a pedophile. Incidents classified as racial discrimination are automatically elevated to the district office, under the current policy.
Moseby alleged the poster incident was racially motivated, according to records and interviews.
Sloppy record keeping is not new to the Moseby investigation. Email records show that the first complaints made in October 2021 similarly vanished, requiring students to come into the office to repeat the same accusations for a new report.
The Moseby case is the latest of an alarming trend of the district handling allegations of abuse internally, instead of calling police and turning over documents.
One notable example includes former California High School wrestling coach Kevin Lopez, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to molesting three boys he coached at the San Ramon school. In 2019, the district and New Life Church of Alamo settled for nearly $1.6 million with a victim who sued for sexual abuse committed by the former coach and youth group leader. In that case, school officials had not reported allegations to the proper authorities.