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.

Related Articles

After burglary at well-loved St. Paul family auto repair shop, owner asks neighbors how to bring about change

Red Wing couple plead guilty to caging, abusing their 4 young children

Former Minneapolis coach and teacher indicted on 12 counts of criminal sexual conduct

Man charged with homicide in killing of gymnastics champion Kara Welsh

Cottage Grove police probe report that student had weapon

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.

Related Articles

Red Wing couple plead guilty to caging, abusing their 4 young children

Former Minneapolis coach and teacher indicted on 12 counts of criminal sexual conduct

Man charged with homicide in killing of gymnastics champion Kara Welsh

Cottage Grove: Police probe report that student had weapon

School shooting draws unwanted attention to Georgia on campaign trail

RED WING, Minn. — A Red Wing couple accused of caging and repeatedly physically and emotionally abusing their four young children have pleaded guilty to one of 16 counts against them.

Benjamin Taylor Cotton, 41, and Christina Ann Cotton, 38, each entered a guilty plea for one count of child torture, according to Goodhue County District Court documents filed Wednesday. The couple could face a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison as a result of a plea agreement setting aside the other charges.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for Dec. 13.

Goodhue County Health and Human Services began investigating the couple following a 2022 report that they were keeping a 5-year-old locked up in a wooden “cage” and subjecting the child to extreme forms of punishment, along with three other children in the home, ages 9, 7 and 2. The report stated the mother suffered from mental health issues.

A social worker and a Red Wing Police Department investigator found three of the children locked in various homemade cages during an Aug. 18, 2022, inspection of the couple’s Red Wing home.

The mother, Christina Cotton, told the investigators the children were locked up for their own safety.

Inside one of the home’s bedrooms, investigators found the 2-year-old inside a playpen with a “dog gate” tied to the top, making it impossible for the child to get out, the complaint said.

Next to the playpen, the 7-year-old and 5-year-old were found in a bunk bed designed for small children that was converted into a cage by the placement of a wooden door and slats that the children could look through but not get out, court documents allege. The door also had a sliding metal lock. The height of the cage did not allow either child to fully stand up.

The 9-year-old was found in the home’s basement and was not caged or confined.

Investigators found a “puke bowl” in one of the cages and it was discovered that the children were not allowed to go to the bathroom once they were put to bed in the cages.

After a police officer told the mother that it was not acceptable to lock her children up, she said she did it to prevent them dying. She added the children were only locked up at night and they were still in their cages because she had slept in. The children had been kept in their cages for 13 hours that day.

Further investigation found the 2-year-old had a soiled diaper that was duct-taped to the child’s skin, and the other children were found to have extensive bruising on their bodies that appeared consistent with being struck by an object.

One of the children told a social worker that he was spanked with a black belt if he does not do his chores, according to court documents.

“He stated that his dad hits him ‘hard’ but that his mom ‘hits him really, really hard,’” the criminal complaint reads.

Additional investigation found pictures that showed extensive bruising of the 9-year-old that the child had taken with a cellphone the day before the home inspection.

All four children were evaluated by medical staff at the Midwest Children’s Resource Center at Children’s Hospital in St. Paul.

A licensed psychologist determined that the mistreatment went well beyond what is typically viewed as physical and emotional abuse and could fit into a category of abuse called “intrafamilial child torture.”

Related Articles

Cottage Grove: Police probe report that student had weapon

School shooting draws unwanted attention to Georgia on campaign trail

January 6 crimes did happen. Court cases, video and thousands of pages of evidence prove it

Attorney for former Mayo doctor accused of murdering wife outlines defense plan for trial

Trump in court as lawyers fight to overturn verdict in E. Jean Carroll sex abuse suit