Trial of former Baird Elementary teacher charged with 5 counts of child sexual assault starts Monday
GREEN BAY ― Former Green Bay School District teacher David Villareal has been sitting in jail for two years awaiting trial.
Prosecutors allege he inappropriately touched three of his second-grade students and a third-grader at Baird Elementary School between 2015 and 2017, charging him with four counts of felony child sexual assault.
Originally charged with five counts, Deputy District Attorney Wendy Lemkuil dropped one of the charges Monday morning due to the inability of an alleged victim to be present for the trial.
The trial, which began Monday morning with jury selection, has been delayed multiple times since his arrest in April 2021, partly due to Villareal's struggle to secure and maintain counsel.
He's had five attorneys and fired his public defender in November due to a disagreement in defense strategies, according to court records. He's being held on a $50,000 bond.
The 48-year-old Villareal is going to trial in a relatively rare case of a teacher facing prosecution for the alleged sexual assault of elementary students.
The U.S. Department of Education estimated in a 2004 study that one in 10 kids experience sexual misconduct at the hands of educators during their K-12 education, though it's very underreported.
Of the incidents that do get reported, fewer than one in five child sexual abuse reports are prosecuted, according to a 2014 study funded by the National Institute of Justice.
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That rings true in Brown County.
Earlier in April, the Brown County District Attorney David Lasee dropped child sexual abuse charges against another former Green Bay teacher, citing insufficient evidence to proceed with the case.
Villareal was a bilingual teacher at Baird, where he mainly taught second grade from 2014 until the spring of 2021 when he was arrested and accused of sexually assaulting three of his former students.
Villareal was originally accused of inappropriate touching in 2017
He was originally accused of inappropriately touching one of his students in 2017, which was reported to the school and the district at the time.
The mother of the student told the school's principal, Michael Sheean, that her daughter said Villareal had inappropriately touched her.
The police were not notified of the allegation in 2017 and weren't involved until more students came forward in 2021, according to Green Bay Police Department spokesperson Jennifer Gonzalez.
A report was filed with the Brown County Child Protective Services in 2017, but Villareal continued teaching, according to school district records.
Four years after the original allegation, Villareal was accused of pinching and squeezing one of his student's buttocks every day between September 2015 and May 2016.
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In that same school year, it's alleged Villareal touched the genitals of another second-grade student on the outside of her pants when she went up to ask him a question at his desk, according to the criminal complaint.
After Villareal's arrest in 2021, two more students came forward with allegations of sexual abuse against him during the 2015-16 school year.
One of these students told police that he cornered her in a classroom closet, pushed her up against a wall and rubbed his genitals against her. When she tried to leave, Villareal pushed her back into the closet multiple times, according to the criminal complaint.
The student told police that was not the only time Villareal inappropriately touched her.
The other student who came forward after Villareal's arrest told police that he would grab her buttocks every day at the after-school running club at Baird Elementary.
Villareal resigned from the district in April 2021, shortly after his arrest.
Villareal previously worked in Houston and Madison schools
Before joining the Green Bay School District, Villareal worked in the Houston Independent School District in Texas as an elementary school teacher from 2010 to 2012. He told police that his contract was not renewed in Houston due to a "lack of appropriate classroom management," according to the criminal complaint.
The Houston Independent School District would not release Villareal's performance evaluation records, citing an exemption under the Texas public records law.
Villareal also worked as an elementary school teacher in the Madison Metropolitan School District from 2000 to 2006, according to the criminal complaint. The Madison Metropolitan School District said it did not have any records relating to Villareal.
He got his Wisconsin teaching license in 2000, according to the state Department of Public Instruction's educator license database.
Sheboygan attorney Kirk Obear of Birdsall Obear & Associates is representing Villareal; Lemkuil is the prosecutor on the case.
The trial started Monday and is scheduled to run all week.
Danielle DuClos is a Report for America corps member who covers K-12 education for the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at dduclos@gannett.com. Follow on Twitter @danielle_duclos. You can directly support her work with a tax-deductible donation at GreenBayPressGazette.com/RFA or by check made out to The GroundTruth Project with subject line Report for America Green Bay Press Gazette Campaign. Address: The GroundTruth Project, Lockbox Services, 9450 SW Gemini Drive, PMB 46837, Beaverton, Oregon 97008-7105.
This article originally appeared on Green Bay Press-Gazette: Child sexual assault trial of former Green Bay teacher to start Monday
