6 September 2024
A Tartan High School band director who resigned from the job in February two weeks after sexual assault accusations surfaced in a personal injury lawsuit now faces a criminal case involving the same alleged victim.
Daniel James Felton, 31, of Brooklyn Park, has been charged in Hennepin County District Court with felony third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with allegedly assaulting the then-17-year-old girl beginning in April 2022 while she was his music student at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis.
Felton, who was charged by summons, has not been booked into jail since the Aug. 15 filing. He has a first appearance scheduled for Sept. 13. An attorney is not listed in his court file.
Felton was the music director at DeLaSalle for nearly two years before leaving the school in August 2022 for Tartan in Oakdale, according to his now-deleted LinkedIn profile. The online page also said he was a professional Gospel musician and a band director at The Holy Christian Church International in St. Paul.
Felton was put on leave from Tartan on Feb. 13, four days after a personal injury lawsuit was filed against him and DeLaSalle in Hennepin County District Court. He resigned from Tartan on Feb. 26, said Lynn Pham, director of equity and communications for School District 622.
DeLaSalle said in a Friday statement that the school was not aware of the allegations “at any time when either the student attended the school or when DeLaSalle employed Felton.”
The Catholic school said it continues to cooperate with law enforcement “as this process moves forward” and is committed to the safety of its students and to the future success of its students.”
According to the Aug. 15 criminal complaint, the victim went to Minneapolis police in January and reported Felton assaulted her several times beginning in April 2022, which was her senior year at DeLaSalle. She said he was her band and choir teacher during her junior and senior years.
Felton added her on Instagram in April 2022 and began sending direct messages, which became sexual, she reported.
She said the first assault happened that month after Felton offered her a ride home after a concert. Instead of driving straight home, she told police, he took them to an empty parking lot and touched her in a “sexual manner,” placing his hand on her inner thigh, the complaint says. She reported the interaction made her feel uncomfortable and she asked him to take her home.
Additional sexual assaults took place between April 2022 and August 2022, mostly in his car, she told police. She reported he would “emotionally coerce” her into sex acts.
Police were given Instagram messages that Felton and the girl purportedly exchanged between April 2022 and September 2022. The messages include Felton telling her multiple times he loves her and describing how he was going to assault her, the complaint says.
The complaint does not mention any police interaction with Felton over the allegations.
Civil suit
The civil suit was filed Feb. 9 by the Minneapolis law firm Storms Dworak on behalf of the alleged victim, who is listed as “Jane Doe.” It includes screenshots of sexually-explicit Instagram messages purportedly sent to the girl by Felton and alleges several assaults, including one in his DeLaSalle office.
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The lawsuit says that throughout the abuse, the girl told Felton “she only wanted the relationship between the two to be platonic and one of a mentor and mentee.” It alleges Felton “continued grooming Jane, making sexual comments to her, messaging her sexually suggestive things, and coercing Jane into allowing Mr. Felton to pick her up in his car so he could sexually abuse her.”
The girl blocked Felton from contacting her through phone and social media in the fall of 2022, according to the lawsuit, which asks for a jury trial and in excess of $50,000 on four counts: negligence, assault, battery and negligent hiring, retention, supervision, training and representation.
Attorney Aaron Thom, who is representing Felton in the civil suit, declined to provide an answer to the abuse allegations in a July 5 court filing, writing that his client “exercises his rights under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.”
Thom did not respond to a request Friday to comment on the lawsuit, which is scheduled for a July jury trial.
Felton also had worked as a music teacher at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis from January 2016 to early November 2018, according to the city’s school district.
Felton taught in the Osseo school district in 2018 and 2019, then for the Spring Lake Park school district until leaving for DeLaSalle, according to his deleted LinkedIn profile. He had earned a Bachelor’s degree in music from Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn., and then a master’s degree in music education from the University of Minnesota.
An August LinkedIn post by a senior partner at New York Life Insurance in Frisco, Texas, says Felton joined the company, which lists his position online as a financial professional and insurance agent.
“Daniel joins us after over a decade in the Music Education World!!!” the post reads. “He is a PASSIONATE and Talented man with a MISSION to educate his community!!”
Separate Tartan case
Felton was the second Tartan teacher to resign in February amid sexual misconduct allegations. Ann Margaret Bacon, 25, quit her special education job at the school on Feb. 8, the same day Oakdale police interviewed her after Tartan administration and a school resource officer received a report that she had sex with an 18-year-old male student at a Vadnais Heights hotel room and at her St. Paul apartment.
Bacon admitted to Oakdale police investigators that she began a sexual relationship with the student about a month before he graduated last year, according to a criminal complaint charging her with felony third-degree criminal sexual conduct alleging a prohibited occupational relationship.
The case remains open, with Bacon’s attorney, Alexander Hertogs, asking Ramsey County District Judge Kellie Charles in an Aug. 12 filing to suppress her confession and dismiss the charge. Hertogs argues that Bacon’s “fundamental right was infringed when she was charged with a crime for allegedly having sexual intercourse with an adult in private” and that investigators “undoubtedly engaged in interrogation when they surprised Ms. Bacon at her place of employment — where she was required to be — and used deceptive tactics and questions to coerce her into confessing.” Charles has yet to rule on the attorney’s request.
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