Cops tried to warn Virginia school that counselor was a sex offender but emails bounced
When police in Virginia said they found out that a man they’d arrested and charged with child sex crimes worked as a middle school counselor, they immediately tried to warn the school.
But two years later, after arresting the same man for a second time, they discovered that he still had his job as a counselor at the school with Fairfax County Public Schools.
After an investigation by WUSA9, the chief of police in Chesterfield County announced on Monday, Aug. 22, that his department’s original warning emails were never delivered to the school system.
The counselor has now been terminated, Superintendent Michelle Reid, officials said in a statement.
“There is no higher priority than the safety of our students and, on behalf of the School Board and myself, I want to make this very clear: this entire situation is unacceptable from any perspective,” Reid said in the statement. “We are deeply concerned about how this happened in one of our schools.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin called the situation a “colossal failure on the local level,” according to a statement sent to McClatchy News by his spokesperson.
And authorities are now investigating how the counselor was able to keep his job for two years, despite having registered as a sex offender and being sentenced to five years of probation.
The original arrest
On Nov. 19, 2020, Chesterfield County police officers conducted a sting operation at a hotel and arrested Darren Thornton, 50, on charges of felony solicitation of a minor 16 years of age or older, use of a vehicle to promote prostitution and marijuana possession, according to a post on Chesterfield County Police Chief Jeffrey Katz’s Facebook page.
At the time Thornton was employed at Glasgow Middle School in Lincolnia, which is in Fairfax County, about 120 miles north of Chesterfield County.
Thornton was later convicted and sentenced to five years supervised probation and required to register as a sex offender through the Virginia State Police. Although he lied and said he was “self-employed” on his registration, officers discovered that he worked at a middle school in Fairfax County, about 100 miles north of Richmond.
“... within 24 hours of this arrest, we called Fairfax County Schools to find out the best way to make the appropriate notification to the superintendent of Thornton’s arrest,” Katz said in the statement. “We were given two email addresses to make notifications.”
On Facebook, Katz shared two screengrabs of emails sent to school officials on Nov. 20 telling them that Thornton, a counselor at Glasgow Middle School, had been charged with three crimes.
The second arrest
On June 9, 2022, Chesterfield officers arrested Thornton again during a prostitution and human-trafficking sting, according to Katz. Thornton was issued summonses on charges of “solicitation of prostitution and frequenting a bawdy place,” according to a news release from the police department.
“We recognized him, and I looked up his name on the internet,” Katz said in the news release. “I was surprised to see that he was still listed on Fairfax County School’s webpage as a school counselor and inquired of our staff how that could be possible.”
Officers called the school the next day and Thornton was placed on administrative leave, according to WUSA, before being fired in August.
The emails
On Aug. 22, police learned that the emails they sent in November 2020, “did not go through the Fairfax County School Server to the intended recipient” — former superintendent Scott Brabrand — according to Katz’s statement.
Police found that Brabrand had “multiple (email) addresses during his tenure.” Braband left the district in June 2022, according to WJLA.
In the statement sent on Aug. 18 to school system parents Reid said besides terminating Thornton, they are petitioning to have his license revoked by the state.
Reid also said that independent investigators will be looking into the school system’s internal processes.
“Please be assured that I will take whatever further corrective actions are required to prevent this from happening again,” Reidt said. I am committed to keeping you updated on this issue.
Local reactions
A spokesman for the Virginia Department of Corrections confirmed that the agency is investigating how Thornton was able to keep his job for two years.
“The investigation is underway and we will take any and all necessary actions once it has concluded,” he said in a statement. “We have no further comment at this time.”
A spokesman for the Virginia Board of Education said in a statement that the agency’s superintendent of public instruction would speak to all school divisions on Aug. 26 to “remind them of their responsibilities related to hiring policies, background checks and related state laws, policies and guidance to protect students from employee misconduct.”
Gov. Youngkin said to have someone who in fact has been arrested for soliciting sex from a minor on staff for 20 months and then to be arrested again and then more time passed before they are finally terminated from their position is beyond belief,” the statement says. “...This is why parents are losing faith in public schools.”
Katz said in his statement that the police department would work with the school system to find out what caused the emails to bounce and prevent it from happening again.
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