When a Sac High teacher went against the Kevin Johnson team
Through Kevin Johnson’s long history of sexual scandals, deniers and defenders have been eager to rush to Johnson’s side. One man who didn’t – and paid a price for it – was Erik Jones.
Back in 2007, Jones was a teacher at Sacramento High School. He said a 17-year-old student confided to him and several others that Johnson had sexually molested her. At the time Johnson served as a teacher, interim principal and head of St. HOPE Public Schools, which oversaw the Sac High charter school.
As mandated under state law, Jones filed a report of suspected child abuse with local authorities despite what he called pressure from school officials to remain silent. In the ensuing controversy, Jones resigned over the way the matter was handled by the school.
“St. HOPE sought to intimidate the student through an illegal interrogation and even had the audacity to ask me to change my story,” Jones wrote in his resignation letter, according to a Sacramento Bee story in 2008, when Johnson was making his initial run for mayor.
What happened, according to a compelling Bee story written by Terri Hardy and Dorothy Korber, was this: Johnson’s personal attorney and business partner, Kevin Hiestand, investigated the complaint for the campus and questioned the girl before police were called in by the teacher. The student recanted, and Sacramento police investigators, who never interviewed Johnson, later found “no merit” to the allegation and declined to pursue the case in part because the girl recanted.
The Bee story also noted that Hiestand was the spokesman for Johnson when he played When a Sac High teacher went against the Kevin Johnson team | Game to 100:
