A former Tartan High School band director who sexually assaulted one of his music students at DeLaSalle High School in Minneapolis was sentenced Monday to four months in the workhouse and five years of probation.
Daniel James Felton, 32, pleaded guilty in May in Hennepin County District Court to the sole count of felony third-degree criminal sexual conduct after reaching an agreement with the prosecution.
Judge Sarah Hudleston imposed the longest jail term allowed under the plea deal. The sentence includes a stay of imposition, which means the felony conviction will be considered a misdemeanor if he successfully complies with the conditions of his probation.
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.
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.
Felton was also a Twin Cities professional gospel musician and a band director at The Holy Christian Church International, which his parents founded on St. Paul’s West Side in 2000. His father serves as its senior pastor, his mother the director of women’s affairs, the church’s website says.
Felton was living in Brooklyn Park with his now ex-wife and three daughters when the civil suit surfaced. They moved to Celina, Texas, before the criminal case was filed in August 2024.
Judge Hudleston agreed to a request by Felton’s attorney that he serve the sentence at a Texas jail so that he can retain work as a “utilities concierge,” which involves helping apartment complexes set up utilities for tenants. He’ll be allowed work release after a week in custody, electronic home monitoring after a month.
Assaulted in his car
The criminal complaint says the victim went to Minneapolis police in January 2024 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 her 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 in detail what he wanted to do to her, the complaint says.
Civil case pending
The civil case was filed Feb. 9 by the Minneapolis law firm Storms Dworak on behalf of the 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.
The lawsuit remains pending in court, with a judge halting further proceedings in September until the criminal case was concluded.
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Felton also worked as a music teacher at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis from January 2016 to early November 2018. He taught in the Osseo school district in 2018 and 2019, then for the Spring Lake Park school district until leaving for DeLaSalle.
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.
Felton was the second Tartan teacher to resign in February 2024 amid sexual misconduct allegations. Ann Margaret Bacon, 26, of Hastings, 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.
She’s pleaded guilty to felony third-degree criminal sexual conduct alleging a prohibited occupational relationship, and a jury trial is scheduled for October.
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