Criminal charges dropped against school administrators in students' sexting investigation
A judge granted a motion to dismiss charges against the second of two Brush School District administrators on Wednesday, concluding the criminal cases against the two men who had viewed and downloaded 'sexting' images being exchanged among students.
The drop of the gavel, however, has not ended the war of words between a defense attorney and the district attorney's office which tried to prosecute both men on child pornography and sexual exploitation charges.
"This is hands down the most egregious abuse of prosecutorial discretion I have ever seen in my 20 years of practicing law," Denver-based attorney Michael Faye told CBS4.
The district attorney, Travis Sides, disagreed with the judge's ruling, called Faye's comments "inflammatory," and declared, "This was a legally justified prosecution."
Yet, while they argue the merits of the prosecutions, attention also now turns to the potential changes that will be made to state law, school district policy, and mandatory reporting statutes in the wake of the incidents.
And the man in the middle of it, Bradley Bass, just wants to get back to his "boring" life after avoiding jail.
But first, the facts. Bass and Scott Hodgson were arrested last June. The two men - the assistant director of the Brush Secondary Campus (a combined middle school and high school) and the principal of Brush High School, respectively - were each charged with four felonies.
Bass, 32, and Hodgson, 39, were informed two months prior of a handful of male students who were texting nude images of underaged girls - including at least one classmate - between themselves. During an interview with the boys, Bass took photos of the images with a cell phone and stored them on a desktop computer. Both devices were issued to him by the school district.
Hodgson was present during the interviews and witnessed Bass taking photos of the 'sexting' images.
According to Bass's arrest affidavit, Bass then notified the Brush Police Department's school resource officer of the incident. That officer acknowledged Bass but, since he was being temporarily re-assigned out of the SRO position due to staffing issues, did not report the sexting to his department until the end of April. When supervisors learned about it, they filed search warrants to gain access to Bass's cell phone and computer.
By that time, Bass had been holding onto the images in the school district's computer and conducting his own investigation into the sexting incident for two weeks. Two boys received multi-day suspensions as a result, according to the affidavit.
The charges against Hodgson were dropped late last year.
DA Sides wanted the case against Bass to stick for two reasons: One, that Bass proceeded to investigate the sexting incidents on behalf of the school district when, in fact, the criminal matter should have been reported to other police officers and even state agencies.
"The defendant actually admitted he should've given the case to law enforcement to investigate," Sides said, explaining that the administrators likely would have properly refrained from excluding police for other felony incidents like those involving drugs, weapons, or assaults. "Why did (the school administrators) think they had the authority to investigate?"
Second, Sides said, Bass stored the images on a computer connected to a networked district system on and from which the images could have been distributed, causing further victimization of the girls in the photos.
"Across Colorado and the country, it does not seem to be an issue that school administrators (should not) possess child porn," he said. "Any reasonable person would check their phone to make sure these photos weren't there. I don't think school's administrators should keep child porn photos indefinitely."
Sides noted that hard drives, software and cell phones containing such images are destroyed at the end of investigations, preventing further distribution.
Meanwhile, Bass's attorney, Faye, told CBS4 that charges should never have been filed against his client in the first place.
"Members of the Thirteenth Judicial District Attorney's Office should be ashamed of themselves for putting Mr. Bass and his family through a criminal prosecution given the facts and circumstances involved in this case," Faye wrote in a statement. "The level of prosecutorial incompetence in the Thirteenth Judicial District is truly something to behold and is quite concerning."
Faye included the Brush Police Department in his criticism.
"The only reason police knew Mr. Bass had the images was because he told police that he had preserved them as evidence for the police," Faye stated. "Brad literally did the police's job for them by preserving the images in a secure location and getting them off the streets. If it wasn't for Brad doing this, the images would have been circulating in the community for at least two weeks because the police took no action on the case for a full two week period. Police took possession of the photos by executing the search warrant, Mr. Bass no longer had access to them at that point, how could he delete them? If he had deleted the images prior to providing them to police he could have and likely would have been charged with destroying evidence."
In fact, the arrest affidavit indicates Brush PD's SRO was emailed by a concerned parent a month with sexting allegations a full month before Bass and Hodgson pulled the boys into their office. Not only that, the SRO received a Safe2Tell alert about the allegations the same day the administrators interviewed the boys. And more Safe2Tell alerts leading up to the search warrants.
Such a delay could be interpreted as a violation of the state's mandatory reporting laws.
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The sexting incidents and subsequent court cases created a tumult and divided the community. Bass says he felt it.
"It's been pretty tough on me, but harder for my wife" and their extended family, he said. "They fact people are saying things and making judgements without knowing all the facts...there's been a lot of collateral damage."
The hardest discussions with his wife were part of planning for the worst: "What does life look like if I have to go to jail, if I have to register as a sex offender..."
Bass himself grew up in Brush and attended Brush High School. His family has roots in Morgan County going back several generations.
But he's ready to step out of the spotlight.
"We tend to be private people. We definitely miss our old life. It's not been an easy year for us. We have this saying, 'We're waiting for our boring.'"
His arrest affidavit provided the following excerpt from a school district handbook:
Anything found in the course of a search conducted by school officials which is evidence of a violation of law or Board policy or school rules or which by its presence presents an immediate danger of physical harm may be:
1 . Seized and offered as evidence in any suspension or expulsion proceeding. Such material shall be kept in a secure place by the principal until it is presented at the hearing.
2. Returned to the student or the parent- guardian.
3. Turned over to a law enforcement officer in accordance with this policy."
Bass said he acted according to those directives.
"I followed the policies that were in place to the best of my ability," he said. "I had no ill intent, I was just following the policies that were in front of me."
Chances are he won't encounter the same circumstances. But if he does, he won't make the same mistakes.
"Obviously I'd do things different. I would be a fool to say I wouldn't learn from it, make changes and grow."
He added: "I will never document this evidence personally ever again."
The school district has reinstated Hodgson, Bass said. He hopes he is able to get back to work as well.
"It will be an interesting day, for sure. It's one of the thing I've thought about. I'm kind of counting on the positive energy the kids carry to bring me through that. I hope I'm able to do that."
The school district did not return CBS4's request for a statement.