Peter Colombo, whose most recent teaching position in the district was at Greene Middle School as a physical education teacher, sued Palo Alto Unified School District in February for defamation, false imprisonment and lack of due process.
Colombo was charged in 2022 with sexual assault of a child after a former student’s husband alleged Colombo sexually assaulted his wife in 2001 when she was in sixth grade. Colombo was subsequently put on unpaid leave by the district.
However, in April 2023 the Santa Clara County district attorney’s office dropped the charges citing lack of evidence to proceed.
Colombo’s attorney, Evan Nelson, said Colombo is currently employed in the district, but not as a teacher.
“They have him stuck in the district office with a made-up position,” Nelson said. “They’re having him do stuff like watch sand deliveries and move goalposts that got left out on the soccer fields and things like that. That’s not what he got his certificate for.”
Nelson said when the sexual assault accusation was made in 2022, it came to Colombo’s wife and the school district before Colombo reported it to the police on his own initiative.
“The accuser’s husband sent an email not just to the district, but he sent an email to Pete’s wife,” Nelson said. “Pete was the first one to report it himself. He’s a mandatory reporter.”
Due to the severity of the crime, Nelson said the district was supposed to investigate the allegations but never did.
Superintendent Don Austin and Board of Education President Jennifer DiBrienza both declined interview requests for this story.
“With Title IX, they’re supposed to investigate something that involves this kind of a serious allegation that could have an impact on the safety of current students,” Nelson said. “They didn’t do any of that. They put him on leave six months later, in about June of 2022. That’s when the (Santa Clara) district attorney decided to arrest Pete based on information that the detectives had found.”
But in an interview with The Paly Voice in May of 2023, after Colombo’s charges were dropped, Austin said the district planned to conduct its own investigation into Colombo’s conduct.
“We have different standards than the legal system when it comes to what we need to look at,” Austin said in the interview.
According to Nelson, though, around the time when Colombo was arrested, the police only talked to one of the four female P.E. teachers at Greene during the investigation and the other three had information that would have exonerated Colombo.
The Palo Alto Police Department Captain James Reifschneider said he could not comment beyond the initial media release.
In her court declaration, then-Greene P.E. teacher Aimee Becker said the alleged crime could not have occurred as described given that she had been present the entire time.
“I can, and do, unequivocally testify that what the accuser reported to have happened as a rape/sexual assault during that year is 100% utter nonsense,” Becker testified. “It absolutely could not have occurred, and I testify that it did not occur based on my own personal knowledge being present and in charge of the girls’ locker room at that time.”
Nelson also said an immediate Title IX investigation carried out by the district, which he said didn’t happen in this instance, would have helped exonerate Colombo earlier.
“I appreciate it’s a difficult situation, first, for districts of schools to deal with these kinds of allegations,” Nelson said. “That’s why the timeline is there. It’s not just to protect the accuser — it also protects the accused, and so there’s due process there that needs to be followed to make sure that everybody’s adequately protected.”
And while Nelson said some might consider no immediate Title IX investigation a good thing for someone like Colombo accused of a crime, Nelson said this is not the case.
“Isn’t he glad they didn’t do a Title IX investigation?” Nelson said. “Well, no. Title IX has a bunch of due process in there for both the accuser and accused, and it’s very important to make sure that both sides get those protections.”
As a result of the way he alleges the district has treated Colombo, the lawsuit against the district names Austin, Trent Bahadursingh, Lisa Hickey and Amanda Bark as co-defendants.
Bahadursingh is the deputy superintendent and Austin’s chief of staff while Hickey is currently the superintendent of Millbrae Elementary School District but was PAUSD’s director of human resources for certificated personnel at the time Colombo was placed on leave. Bark is the district manager of policy and legal compliance.
Bahadursingh, Hickey, and Bark all declined interview requests for this story.
Nelson also said one of the most complicated parts of the case has been that the district hasn’t been able to produce the accuser’s grade reports and attendance records.
“The grade report would have said who her PE teacher was and how could that be deleted and gone missing?” Nelson said. “And to this day, it has not been produced, and there’s been no adequate explanation for what happened to it.”
According to the PAUSD website, “Records are maintained for students who attended PAUSD schools from the early 1900s to the present.”
Junior Sahil Srivastava, who had Colombo as a P.E. teacher at Greene, said he was appalled when he first heard about the charges against Colombo.
“I was really surprised,” Srivastava said. “Obviously, there’s a lot of things that were unknown, and later, I believe the school district posted a message about it where all the facts came out, and I think it was really disturbing to hear.”
However, incoming school board trustee and #MeToo activist Rowena Chiu said while it may not apply to this case, false sexual assault allegations are quite rare.
“Now, I would say broadly — this isn’t a comment on Peter Colombo’s innocence or guilt per se — but, and I want to be careful, I stress that ‘but,’ I would say broadly, it is very difficult to come forward with the sexual assault accusation,” Chiu said.
Chiu also said in cases like these, it is important to err on the side of caution.
“In my personal opinion, I think, for the district, the safest precaution would be not to allow a teacher accused of sexual assault to return to teaching until there is a legal case that has proven beyond reasonable doubt that they have not committed a sexual assault,” Chiu said. “But in this case, this is very complicated because the charges were dropped.”
Srivastava said, despite the charges being dropped, he thinks Colombo should not return to teach at the district.
“Honestly, I feel that he shouldn’t return, because, yes, the case was 20 years old, and it is hard to gather evidence from so long ago, but any allegations like that are deeply disturbing, especially for a teacher who’s job is to work with kids,” Srivastava said.
However, Nelson said Colombo should be given back his previous teaching position.
“When you’re put on an involuntary or a forced leave, they need to retain your position for you when you come back, and the district didn’t do that,” Nelson said. “And even right now, I mean, we’re fighting within the district through their grievance process to get him restored to the teaching position which he’s entitled to have, and that’s being done in addition to the lawsuit that’s ongoing.”
Nelson declined to make Colombo available for an interview.
naveen • Dec 16, 2024 at 2:47 pm
i think naveen is cool
Mark Allendorf • Dec 5, 2024 at 9:42 am
So a man is falsely accused of a crime, does the right thing and reports the accusation, yet the district hides evidence that would clearly exonerate him.
I smell a rat.
In other words, PR trumps justice and that’s okay with Ms. Chiu and the top leadership of PAUSD.
Why is Ms. Chiu not concerned with an apparent 25 Churchill cover up?
For a district that preaches social justice and equity all day long, why is it that they are willing to throw an innocent man under the bus?
The answer is simple: they truth is not convenient and does not make for good optics or Niche Rankings.
What a great lesson to teach our children: If the truth does not fit your rosy narratives, then bury it along with the career and reputation of an innocent man.
Kudos 25 Churchill.
Evan Nelson • Dec 4, 2024 at 3:59 pm
Although not quoted in the article, Peter Colombo has shown his exemplary character throughout this ordeal and has made it clear that he sincerely hopes the circumstances of this false accusation against him will not dissuade anyone who has actually been sexually assaulted from coming forward, as that would just add another travesty to this situation.
Briefly addressing new PAUSD Board Member Chiu’s remarks, false sexual assault/rape claims are rare under normal circumstances. Unfortunately, the #Me Too movement and related “Believe Women” resolution appear to be causing an increase in false rape claims as shown by statistics for Northern Santa Clara County and for Stanford University. In fact, just about one month before the District Attorneys finally dropped the malicious prosecution against Mr. Colombo, they had to apologize publicly to another falsely accused male at Stanford University whom they had fully prosecuted to conviction before the female accuser finally admitted she made up her claim. The #Me Too movement still has an important, proper place in social change to encourage all true survivors to come forward, female, male, LGBTQIA+ and for their claims to be taken seriously and properly investigated through an immediate, thorough and impartial investigation. (Yes, we agree the proper term should be survivor not victim.) But social policy change cannot turn the constitution and due process on its ear to favor female accusers over the male accused as espoused by the “Believe Women” resolution, an unlawful course Ms. Chiu expressly adopts by stating she thinks it is ok to continue discriminating against Mr. Colombo based on his being a male accused of sexual assault and forcing him to prove his innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. Discriminating against someone in their employment based on an arrest without either a conviction or a finding of misconduct violates federal law under Title VII (See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1); Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, 144 S. Ct. 967, 974 (2024)) by flouting the constitutional due process right of presumption of innocence. Similarly, it is a per se violation of California law under recent changes to FEHA, which prohibits the taking of any employment action based on an arrest without a finding of misconduct (California Code of Regulations, Title 2, section 11017.1). What has been done to Mr. Colombo and to his family is unconcscionable and it further violates our laws to do what Ms. Chiu suggests and require an accused to prove a negative, to prove that he didn’t a crime of which he has been accused before returning him to his teaching position and removing the false rape stain that the District fraudulently placed there by concealing exculpatory evidence and coordinating a biased investigation ran by a female Palo Alto Police Department (“PAPD”) Detective whose wife co-sponsored the “Believe Women” agenda. I very cordially invite readers to unpack that sentence.
To be clear, the coordinated District/PAPD investigation that led to the arrest and malicious prosecution of Mr. Colombo ignored readily available witnesses including the three female PE teachers (each of whom is still employed by the District and readily available to be contacted) who were in charge of the girls’ PE locker room at Jordan (now Greene) in 2001-2002. Three of these women, including Ms. Becker, have now provided sworn testimony that the alleged assault is false and could not have occurred based on locker room procedures in place at the time. The coordinated District/PAPD investigation also actively concealed exculpatory evidence, in apparent violation of California Penal Code § 135, including (1) the accuser’s grade report showing (a) whether she even took PE (she was a competitive swimmer and might have been granted an exception similar to her exception from taking PE at the school she attended in Walnut Creek for 7th grade) and, (b) if she did take 6th grade PE, who was her 6th grade PE teacher, and they also intentionally withheld (2) the evidence that Mr. Colombo had been assigned to teach 6th grade PE at Terman (now Fletcher) in 2001-2002 and would not have even been on the Jordan campus 30% of each day during those 6th grade PE classes he was teaching at Terman, while a different male PE teacher at Jordan would have been teaching Mr. Colombo’s 6th grade PE classes at Jordan. It bears noting that the accuser originally identified her 6th grade PE teacher as having short hair, while everyone knows that Pete Colombo is bald; but the other two male PE teachers at Jordan during 2001-2002 each had short hair and one of them had taken over Mr. Colombo’s 6th grade PE classes at Jordan in 2001-2002 because the District sent Mr. Colombo to teach those 6th grade PE classes at Terman. [Per the female PE teacher’s sworn testimony, the accuser’s claim is false regardless of who her PE teacher was because it couldn’t have happened as claimed, in the Jordan girls’ PE locker room during lunch in 2001-2002, but this concealed evidence about Mr. Colombo’s assignment to Terman in 2001-2002 should have exonerated Mr. Colombo at the outset even without the female PE teacher’s eyewitness testimony.] There is much, much more that any honest, fair investigation should have included before allowing the District Attorneys to ruin a man’s reputation, life and career through the arrest and malicious prosecution of the second of two false rape claims brought within months of each other.
Although Mr. Colombo has not yet been provided an opportunity to prove his innocence, and even though such is NOT a requirement in line with our United States and California Constitutions and other laws, Mr. Colombo was exonerated by the District’s subsequent 2023-2024 investigation, which is why he has been returned to employment by the District. In Ms. Chiu’s defense, she apparently doesn’t know about that investigation because the District has concealed that evidence as well. In mid-2023, after the malicious criminal prosecution ended by dismissal of all charges against Mr. Colombo with prejudice, the District announced to the media that it was conducting its own investigation of Mr. Colombo. Through recently acquired evidence, it is clear that even though the District failed to provide Mr. Colombo proper notice regarding that 2023-2024 investigation, it was the District’s intention to bring a formal “Statement of Charges or an Intent to Dismiss/Suspend” based on that investigation as represented by the District to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (“CTC”).
The District hired its own third party investigator in late-2023 to finally conduct an impartial investigation. The District’s independent investigator is a female former sheriff in Orange County who has 20+ years of extensive experience investigating these type of school campus sexual assault claims both in the criminal context and in the context and/or nature of Title IX investigations. On January 25, 2024, the District’s investigator interviewed Mr. Colombo and, upon conclusion of the interview, she stated unequivocally that even under the lower preponderance of the evidence standard for civil cases “obviously, there’s no way the facts support a finding that there was any type of sexual assault, sexual impropriety but um I’m sure you already knew that.”
Of note, the District still concealed from their independent investigator the accuser’s grade report, the evidence that Mr. Colombo was actually sent to teach his 6th grade classes at Terman in 2001-2002, and the testimony from the female PE teachers in charge of the girls’ locker room at Jordan in 2001-2002 that further proves the sexual assault claim was false. Even without this exonerating evidence still concealed by the District, the District’s independent investigator could not find evidence to meet the lower preponderance of the evidence standard to make a finding that a sexual assault had even occurred. Which is why the District has attempted revisionist history to label the investigation as “an investigation in anticipation of litigation” and to claim that attorney-client privilege and attorney work product doctrine shield the investigation results from production. The District’s latest obstruction attempting to further conceal their misconduct by relabeling their 2023-2024 investigation is belied by a June 26, 2023 letter from then District Director of Human Resources-Certificated Lisa Hickey to CTC representing that the investigation of Mr. Colombo was expected to result in disciplinary actions in the form of a Statement of Charges and/or issuance of a Notice of Intent to Dismiss/Suspend, not that it was simply an investigation in anticipation of litigation.
It appears that District Deputy Superintendent Trent Bahadursingh and other members of the District Administration Team underestimated the competence and professionalism of the third party investigator they hired. On September 15, 2023, Mr. Bahadursingh, on behalf of the District Administration Team, emailed the independent investigator to connect her with the PAPD investigator who led the coordinated District/PAPD investigation, and he cc’ed the PAPD detective on the email and touted her as having been “a great partner throughout the process.” Indeed, she was a great partner in the misandrist, discriminatorily biased joint District/PAPD investigation that included unlawful concealment of evidence and led to a malicious prosecution resulting in dismissal off all charges in favor of Mr. Colombo. Unfortunately for the District, the independent investigator they hired knows the laws and the proper way to conduct an impartial investigation of this serious nature, so she was not swayed by the intentionally misandrist, biased joint District/PAPD investigation. When the third party investigator proved her refusal to “go along” and made candid statements about her findings, the District simply concealed her findings in violation of District Board policies. (See, e.g., Palo Alto Unified School District Administrative Regulation 1312.3 AR, Section G., which sets forth the requirements of an investigation report relating to any report of sexual misconduct.) Regardless, the investigator’s statements made to Mr. Colombo and his counsel during the investigation interview on January 25, 2024 are not privileged or protected from disclosure, and neither are her actual findings properly concealed given the true nature of the District’s investigation.
Ms. Chiu might be correct that there is no way to unring the false bell that was rung by the District. There is no way to remove the false rape stain from Mr. Colombo’s reputation. There is no way to restore the psychological well-being damaged by severe emotional distress of being wrongly labeled a child rapist and being discriminated against as a male accused by a female of a sexual assault that didn’t occur, of being stripped of your teaching and coaching career (the things that you most loved doing), being forced into solitary confinement in a 7′ x 9′ cell for 23.5 hours per day due to fear of being injured or killed by other inmates due to the false label of child rapist, being placed on a year of ankle monitoring and home confinement and much, much more that was done to an innocent person – not someone who simply escaped prosecution based on some technicality but someone whose case would never gone to the District Attorney but for intentional concealed exonerating evidence and then the case was still dismissed because there is not even a scintilla of credible evidence to support it. I ask that I be invited to the next closed door session board meeting where Mr. Colombo’s case is discussed, for a chance to prove his innocence to you, even though that is a ridiculous requirement to place on someone living under the protections of our laws and constitutions.
If forced by continued recalcitrance, I will relish the opportunity to prove Mr. Colombo’s innocence in another forum soon enough. But there is a much better resolution available to put this all in the rearview mirror for everyone, to begin the healing process and to avoid further damage to the progress made in helping true survivors will come forward. But continuing to act as though Mr. Colombo was guilty or deserving of the miscarriage of justice dumped on him simply will not fly. Our Constitutions, our laws, our sense of decency and fairness will not abide such despicable conduct by those who have been loaned the mantle of local government office.