Boy accused of assault is related to Palm Beach Central official charged with failing to report it

Update: The Assistant State Attorney dropped the felony charges against Principal Darren Edgecomb, Assistant Principal Nereyda Cayado de Garcia, chorus teacher Scott Houchins and then-guidance counselor Priscilla Carter on March 15. You can read about it here. A judge dismissed the case against Daniel Snider on Nov. 22. You can read about it here.

A male student at Palm Beach Central High suspected of a 2021 sexual assault that led to the arrests of five school district employees this week is related to one of the defendants, Assistant Principal Dan Snider, law-enforcement records show.

Palm Beach Central Principal Darren Edgecomb, assistant principals Snider and Nereyda Cayado de Garcia, chorus teacher Scott Houchins and then-guidance counselor Priscilla Carter face felony charges of failing to report child abuse against the female survivor, who was 15 years old at the time.

Snider became involved after the 15-year-old's friend reported the assault to him in August 2021, records show. He later greeted detectives when they visited the Wellington school to speak to the boy and told them they wouldn't be talking to him because he had an attorney.

When reminded that he was a mandatory reporter of child abuse or suspected child abuse, Snider said he wasn't because the boy was a relative, according to records.

And a school police officer told sheriff’s deputies investigating the assault that he was friends with Snider and that the male student was a “good kid from a good family.”

The male student, who was under 18 at the time, has never been charged with a crime, though the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office found probable cause that a crime occurred, according to arrest reports. The original case of the assault hasn't been reopened, according to the sheriff's office.

The survivor’s parents did not want to pursue a case against the male student in 2021 because they were worried about impeding their daughter's healing.

Now, her parents have decided to pursue legal action against school officials after they found new information about the educators and whether they reported the abuse.

The school district declined to comment on the relationship between the boy and Snider. Attorney Leonard Feuer, who is representing Snider, did not comment when reached on Thursday.

More from the arrests: Palm Beach Central principal, 4 staffers charged with failure to report student child abuse

Teens were hanging out at Lake Worth Beach when assault occurred, survivor said

In August 2021, sheriff’s deputies began investigating a lewd and lascivious offense that occurred in April of that year.

The survivor said she and her friend went to swim and hang out for the day at Lake Worth Beach just a few days before her birthday, according to an investigation report. Accompanying the two girls were the survivor’s boyfriend of about one week, and another boy — all four were students at Palm Beach Central and knew each other.

After swimming and playing volleyball, two pairs split apart to walk on the beach, the report says. The survivor and her boyfriend sat down on a sheet on the beach before he began touching her in her private area originally with her consent. After a few minutes, she said she wanted to stop and the boy did. This happened again before the girl started pushing his hands away while he was touching her and he did not stop, the report says.

The survivor’s friend then approached the pair, who were underneath a towel. The friend didn’t see exactly what was happening, but told investigators she saw movement under the towel near her friend’s lower body, according to the report. The two girls went into the bathroom together, and then the four teens decided to leave the beach.

Later, the teens were wrapped in their towels sitting on sidewalk benches waiting for rides home from the beach when the survivor’s boyfriend put a towel over her and again began to touch her private area as she fought him and pushed him away, the report says. He forcibly and repeatedly touched her for about 10 minutes, she told investigators.

Florida state law says the victim’s consent cannot be used as a defense for lewd or lascivious battery.

Lewd or lascivious battery committed by a person under 18 on a person younger than 16 is a third-degree felony in Florida. The charge carries a maximum prison sentence of five years for adults, but does not specify a maximum prison sentence for minors.

Following the assault in April, the survivor received a text message from someone who said she was the boy’s mother. The person said she’d found photos on his phone of the girl that she did not like. The person said she would not be hearing from the boy for a while, according to the investigation report.

Sometime between the April incident and the end of the school year, the friend who witnessed the incident at the beach wrote a letter that said her friend had been sexually assaulted, the report says. The unnamed friend wrote that she had witnessed two boys "not taking no for an answer."

It is unclear from the investigation report what the other incident was and whether it was a different boy involved. PBSO spokesperson Teri Barbera said the sheriff’s office investigated only one sexual assault.

In her letter, the survivor’s friend also said that the survivor had been engaging in self-harm and that she was worried she was contemplating ending her life.

The student’s friend gave the letter to Palm Beach Central chorus teacher Houchins, who routed it to the school’s guidance office. Houchins did not report the allegations of sexual assault to the state child abuse hotline, the report says.

On June 16, Priscilla Carter, a school behavioral health specialist at the time, called the student down to her office. After speaking with her, Carter decided the girl was not a risk to herself and therefore didn’t need to be taken for a mental-health evaluation at the hospital, according to the report.

Although Carter read the letter that mentioned sexual assault, the arrest report says Carter also did not report the incidents to the Department of Children and Families or to law enforcement and did not ask the student about them. Carter asked the teen only about her suicidal thoughts and whether she felt safe in her relationship, the report says.

The student told Carter she felt safe because she was no longer dating the boy who she said assaulted her, according to the report.

When school started again in August, the student came home upset because she said her ex-boyfriend had been sending inappropriate photos of her to others at school, the report shows.

On Aug. 16, another one of the survivor’s friends reported the sexual assault to Snider, the arrest report says. Snider asked her to provide a written report, which she did.

Snider, who was related to the accused, took the report and shared it with Edgecomb, but none of the school’s leaders reported the suspected assault to DCF, the arrest report says. Edgecomb later took a statement from the survivor without telling her parents, the report says.

On Aug. 17, the student made a second report about the suspected sexual assault to Cayado de Garcia, and Cayado de Garcia shared that report with Edgecomb, according to the report.

'Good kid from good family'

On Aug. 19, Edgecomb told assistant principal Cayado de Garcia that Snider had asked him whether he could be involved in the matter, the report says. Edgecomb said he told Snider he couldn’t be.

And Snider later told PBSO deputies that he was aware that he was a mandated reporter of child abuse, but that he turned over the whole matter to Edgecomb to handle and did not report the abuse to law enforcement or the state abuse hotline because his family member was involved.

At the meeting with Cayado de Garcia, Edgecomb said he had conducted his own “investigation” of the sexual assault and decided it did not happen, the report says. Edgecomb is not a law-enforcement officer.

Edgecomb said that as a result of his investigation, the school did not need to report the allegations to law enforcement or DCF. He said that the student's interpretation of the events was different and that he wouldn't go "by hearsay," according to the report.

Cayado de Garcia said she did not report the sexual assaults because there was no indication that the student wasn't safe, and therefore there was no need for the school to report the incident, the report says.

But Florida law says even suspected child abuse must be reported.

Carter, the guidance counselor, said she could not work with the survivor because Snider was her boss. She told investigators she “stayed away from it” because the allegations included Snider’s relative.

On Aug. 24, Detective Lisa Alverez of PBSO’s special victims unit emailed Edgecomb to let him know she was investigating the sexual assault case and that she would need copies of the statements collected from students by the school.

The following day, Edgecomb told her that she would need a subpoena in order to release the statements. Instead, Alvarez submitted a public records request on Aug. 27, the report says.

On Aug. 30, Alvarez got a call from Lt. James Schnaderbeck of the school police. Schnaderbeck asked about the nature of her records request and investigation, then said he was personal friends with Snider, according to the report.

Schnaderbeck told Alvarez that the suspect in the sexual assault was a “good kid from a good family,” and that he did not want to be involved because it posed a conflict of interest. Alvarez said he didn’t have to be involved in the matter, but asked for help fulfilling her records request, the report says.

She never heard from Schnaderbeck again.

Sexual assault case has not been reopened, police say

Edgecomb, Snider, Cayado de Garcia, Houchins and Carter were all arrested Monday and charged with failing to report child abuse.

As school district employees, all are mandated reporters of abuse, neglect and abandonment. State law does not differentiate between incidents that occur at school or outside it.

The survivor’s parents initially chose not to pursue criminal charges against the boy because, they told investigators, they thought a legal battle would delay the student’s progress in healing from the incident.

This year, they went to PBSO again with new information about what school leaders hadn't reported.

Barbera said although the school administrators have been arrested, the survivor’s family has not asked the investigation into the sexual assault to be reopened.

Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work, subscribe today!

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Arrested Palm Beach Central employee related to boy accused of assault