Danville cheer coach sentenced to 3 years, 8 months for molesting students
MARTINEZ — A former Danville schoolteacher and cheer coach was sentenced to the maximum allowable sentence — three years and eight months in prison — for molesting girls in his care.
Nicholas Moseby, 44, was convicted in October of committing a lewd act on a child and sending harmful material to a child, both felonies, along with misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a minor and sexual battery of a girl. He maintained throughout his trial that he was the victim of a student-led smear campaign after a mistake where he sent a picture of his genitals to a student, but intended to send it to an online sex worker.
Moseby was remanded to custody after a Wednesday morning court hearing, meaning he’ll start off 2026 behind bars. Contra Costa Judge Joni Hiramoto handed down the sentence, rejecting a recommendation by the county probation department to forego jail altogether.
Moseby can reduce the sentence by half with good behavior, authorities said.
Moseby worked as a biology teacher at San Ramon Valley High School and as a cheerleading coach at Nor*Cal Elites at the time of the crimes. He had also worked as a middle school teacher in Danville. He was charged in 2022, and spent about three months behind bars, which will count toward his prison sentence.
During his trial, former students testified to groping, sexual comments, and other “creepy” behavior. One woman said Moseby sent her an unsolicited picture of his genitals when she was 18, bolstering the testimony of the girl who said she received a similar picture from him. Another said he responded with a fire emoji to a picture of her and two teen friends in the back of a van.
After his initial arrest on charges of sending the lewd picture to a teen, other girls came forward with allegations of sexual assault and claims that he’d made lewd comments at cheer practices and class. Moseby testified in his own defense at trial, flatly denying any sexual abuse had occurred but admitting to accidentally sending the picture to the girl, claiming he was horrified in embarrassment and tried to immediately delete the picture.
Prosecutors argued at trial that Moseby’s pornography searches referencing teens, high school and sodomy showed he had a lewd interest in teens. The prosecution’s theory was that Moseby started by flirting with students, then began groping them while disguising the action as legitimate help with cheer moves.
He was hired by both the San Ramon Valley Unified School District and the private cheer academy despite prior problems with the law, including a prostitution arrest in the Bay Area. Oakland police arrested Moseby in 2015, when he allegedly showed up to a hotel there after agreeing to pay an undercover officer posing as a sex worker $120 for sex, authorities said.
In 2010, Moseby was charged with being drunk in public in Santa Barbara. In 2009, he was convicted of a misdemeanor for providing alcohol to a teen in Arizona. Police had initially investigated that incident as a sexual abuse allegation because the teen reported being assaulted at a party after receiving alcohol from Moseby.
Moseby informed the school district about his 2009 case. For the prostitution sting, he received a deferred judgment. The 2010 drunkenness case never resolved; a judge issued a warrant for Moseby’s arrest after he failed to show up to his arraignment and that’s where things stayed. Similarly, in 2009, a judge in Arizona issued a warrant — which police there said was still active when he was arrested in 2022 — for failing to submit to fingerprint testing.
Moseby was the subject of multiple complaints by students at San Ramon Valley High School, including that he called girls “hot” and made other comments about their looks, authorities said. The district’s response was to transfer him to Diablo Vista Middle School in 2022, according to records released to this news organization.
Before his transfer a group of freshman boys taped a poster to Moseby’s classroom door with the claim that he was a “pedophile.”
Several of Moseby’s alleged victims have filed a lawsuit against the school district, alleging officials failed to heed warning signs, leading to more sexual abuse. The suit is unresolved.
After a trial that lasted roughly six weeks, jurors convicted Moseby of most charges but acquitted him of one lewd act on a minor charge, which involved allegations that he grinded against a 13-year-old girl’s backside. The jury also hung on another lewd act count involving alleged inappropriate touching of a 15-year-old.
Moseby will remain in the Contra Costa jail system until he is transferred to state prison.