Principals challenge charges in St. Paul custodian sexual misconduct case

The former principal and assistant principal of a St. Paul school that employed a custodian charged in eight sexual misconduct cases are challenging allegations that they knew of the custodian's alleged behavior but didn't report it to police as mandated by law.

The attorney for Beth Behnke and Craig Guidry, Peter Wold, filed motions Tuesday to dismiss charges against his clients. Behnke and Guidry are each charged in Ramsey County District Court with one count of misdemeanor failure to report the maltreatment of a minor.

"With 20/20 hindsight, blame has been cast in this politically hot button issue," Wold wrote in his motions.

Behnke was principal and Guidry was assistant principal at Linwood Monroe Arts Plus in 2011-2012 when custodian Walter Happel allegedly smacked an eighth grade boy's buttocks in the lunchroom about Jan. 17, 2012 for wearing sagging pants. The boy told his teacher and subsequently, Behnke and Guidry, that Happel smacked him and said that people in prison "get [expletive]" for wearing sagging pants.

In his motions, Wold said that Behnke and Guidry had no reason to believe that the act was sexual abuse. Wearing sagging pants was against school policy, he wrote, and staff were "required" to address it with students.

"There is simply no credible evidence surrounding the January 17, 2012 incident that Happel acted with sexual or aggressive intent," Wold wrote. "The act itself is one typically associated with discipline ... While the comment Happel made to Student A ... is a sexual comment, in this context the comment is clearly meant to be a scare tactic to stop Student A from wearing sagging pants.

"Everyone at the school viewed the act as disciplinary in nature, not sexual."

The Dakota County attorney's office, which reviewed and charged the cases due to a conflict of interest, believes that Behnke and Guidry should have reported the smacking incident because they had information about Happel's prior alleged misconduct with another student.

The smacking incident came on the heels of a late 2011 incident in which Happel allegedly followed a different boy into the bathroom, exposed his genitals to the student and said, "It's a big thing." The Dakota County attorney's office said that Behnke and Guidry were both aware of that incident as well, having met with Happel and instructing him to stop using the student bathroom.

The totality of Happel's alleged behavior should have prompted them to report the January 2012 incident to police as is required by Minnesota's mandated reporter law, Chief Deputy Dakota County Attorney Phil Prokopowicz said in a memorandum supporting the charges.

The law requires mandated reporters, which include educators and clergy, among others, to file reports with police within 24 hours of learning about the neglect or sexual abuse of a minor.

"It was not until March 19, 2014 that school district officials filed the 'Confidential Student Maltreatment Reporting Form' in which they identified the [smacking incident] as an act of 'sexual abuse,' " Prokopowicz wrote in his memo, also filed Tuesday. "The complaint indicates that when confronted with this fact defendant Guidry indicated he believed it was someone else's responsibility in the district to make the necessary report."

That case led to additional investigations, and scrutiny of school officials' response to previous allegations made by students.

The Ramsey County attorney's office charged Happel in eight cases, six of them involving Linwood Monroe students in recent years. In 2010, Happel allegedly pressed his genitals onto the buttocks of the same student from the 2012 butt smacking incident, according to charges.

Two cases, the most serious, involve the alleged rape and sexual assault of a family friend and relative in the 1980s.

Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom has said that several school district employees were aware of allegations against Happel, but that Behnke and Guidry had the most complete information and should have raised an alarm when the student reported the 2012 smacking incident.

But Wold argued that police investigated the 2011 bathroom incident and didn't pursue it more.

St. Paul police didn't pursue the 2011 incident further, Wold wrote, but "somehow Ms. Behnke was suppose to infer from that incident that Happel's actions on January 17, 2012 were sexual in nature."

Prokopowicz argued that sexual contact encompassed by the state's mandated reporter law involves the touching of "intimate parts," which include the buttocks.

Court and school records show that Happel was allowed to work alongside students despite concerns by multiple employees across different schools.

Criminal charges show that school employees had concerns about Happel using the student bathroom and giving students candy.

School disciplinary records show that in 2003, Happel's supervisor disciplined him for giving candy to students and giving a boy a digital camera and allegedly meeting with the boy in a school bathroom. Personnel records show that Happel, who was working at Roosevelt Elementary School at the time, ignored his supervisor's and principal's orders to stop the behavior, but was allowed to keep working.