Police believe there could be multiple victims of a retired teacher who has been charged with sexually abusing a minor.
David Schwantes, 73, was charged Wednesday with seven counts of sexual abuse of a minor. He pleaded not guilty to those charges Thursday.
Schwantes was a third- and fourth-grade teacher at Mt. Spurr Elementary School on Elmendorf Air Force Base (now Joint Base Elemdorf-Richardson) from 1968 to 1993, according to a statement from Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Castro. From 1993 to ’96 he worked as a substitute teacher for the Anchorage School District, and from ’99 to 2000 was an after-school activities teacher at Muldoon Elementary School.
Before working with ASD, Schwantes taught in Southeast and rural Alaska. A newsletter from the National Education Association Alaska/Retired revealed he taught in Sitka, Bethel and Adak. He was also named Anchorage Teacher of the Year in 1989 and Alaska Teacher of the Year in 1990. Because authorities don’t know how long the abusive behavior went on, his complete teaching history must be looked into, Castro said.
An investigation into Schwantes was launched in September after an alleged victim, who is now an adult, told police he was sexually abused by Schwantes, who he first met when he was attending Mt. Spurr Elementary in the late-’80s.
“During the subsequent years, Schwantes befriended and molested the victim during the 1990s, both at school and elsewhere,” Castro wrote.
Schwantes was charged with five counts of second-degree sexual abuse of a minor, one count of first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and one count of attempted first-degree sexual abuse of a minor and taken to the Anchorage Jail, APD says.
Police ask people with additional information to contact APD and ask for Detective John Vandervalk of the APD Special Victims Unit.
Given the time frame of the alleged abuse and JBER’s transient population, Vandervalk said police are trying to spread the word as widely as possible in hopes of furthering their investigation. Potential victims may no longer live in Alaska, the detective said.
“Some people may have put it behind them and it may be too difficult to deal with and they may not want to come forward, that’s their own particular choice,” Vandervalk said at a Thursday press conference. “What we want to come out of this is the best possible outcome for the victims.”
Besides the criminal charges against Schwantes, court documents show he has also been named in a civil suit filed by his alleged victim. The plaintiff, identified in court documents as John Doe, seeks more than $100,000 in damages in his suit against Schwantes and the Anchorage School District.
A complaint dated July 31 alleges the sexual abuse occurred between 1988 and ’98 on school district property. The lawsuit also claims ASD was negligent with its hiring and supervision of Schwantes.
The school district couldn’t comment on what kind of background checks were in place in the late 1980s, but police don’t think anything would’ve shown up.
“There is no indications that I’ve been able to find so far in the investigation that would’ve caused anybody to have any concerns back in the day,” Vandervalk said