Charges dropped against St. Paul school officials
Updated 2:07 p.m. | Posted 8:19 a.m.
Criminal charges have been dropped against the former principal and assistant principal of a St. Paul school who were accused of failing to report a custodian's alleged sexual misconduct against a student.
A Ramsey County judge on dismissed the charges against Beth Behnke and Craig Guidry, former administrators at Linwood Monroe Arts Plus School. The judge says in orders released Tuesday that they had no reason to suspect the custodian acted with sexual intent when he smacked an eighth-grade boy's buttocks in the lunchroom.
Attorney Peter Wold represented the two school administrators.
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"The common assumption about this slap on the rear end was it was a form of punishment by someone that really should be in the position of punishing kids but it certainly wasn't deemed by anyone to have sexual intent," he said.
Behnke and Guidry were charged with one count each of misdemeanor failure to report the maltreatment of minors. The charges followed investigations into the custodian's alleged misconduct.
The custodian, 62-year-old Walter Happel, faces several charges of sexual misconduct for more recent incidents that include watching a student through a bathroom stall.
Happel resigned in February.
MPR News Reporter Tim Post contributed to this report