Police detail charges in sex assault case against Danbury teacher

Kayla Mooney, 24, of Danbury, is accused of having a relationship with one of her students. Kayla Mooney, 24, of Danbury, is accused of having a relationship with one of her students. Photo: Contributed Photo Photo: Contributed Photo Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Police detail charges in sex assault case against Danbury teacher 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

DANBURY -- Months before a high school science teacher was charged with the sexual assault of a 17-year-old male student in her class, rumors about an inappropriate relationship had become so persistent they disrupted her daily physics lessons, according to a police report.

The rumors prompted first-year teacher Kayla Mooney to twice complain to high school administrators -- first to say the student himself was spreading the rumors, and next to report she was being harassed by the student's ex-girlfriend.

Mooney's Feb. 6 complaint about the angry ex-girlfriend led administrators to interview the male student about whether the rumors were true. He said they were, according to the police report.

Mooney, who was charged March 31 with second-degree sexual assault and providing alcohol to a minor, has been on paid leave from Danbury High School since the student's allegations.

She was scheduled to be arraigned Monday, but her lawyer asked for it to be postponed until April 27.

The police report filed in state Superior Court in Danbury provides new details about how a typical student-teacher relationship became strained by allegations of inappropriate conduct.

It also documents the lengths police went during a seven-week investigation to collect cellphone records and testimony from the student's friends and her colleagues.

For weeks following the news of Mooney's leave, no information was made public by police or the school system, which was aware of the rumors as early as December.

Hearst Connecticut Media Group withheld Mooney's name until she was charged. The name of the 17-year-old has not been released because of his age and the sexual nature of the allegation.

"With the information obtained through this investigation, including search warrants, documents and recordings, it appears there was contact made between Mooney and (the youth) on the dates and times in question," reads an affidavit from Danbury Detective Sgt. Adam Marcus.

Mooney has not entered a plea in court. Her attorney, William Westcott, was not immediately available for comment Tuesday.

It starts with a note

In statements to police the youth said his relationship with Mooney began as a typical one.

"We joked and laughed with each other on different occasions," the youth told police in a sworn statement on Feb. 12, two days after Mooney was placed on leave and the criminal investigation began. "And basically we were a normal teacher-student relationship."

Everything changed when he put a note on her desk inviting her to a Kid Ink concert on Halloween night at a downtown club called Tuxedo Junction.

They traded emails on their school-issued accounts and then switched to cellphone messages, agreeing that Mooney would not accompany him to the concert but would pick him up later at a friend's house, according to Marcus' affidavit.

"We drove to Cedar Road and sat and talked for a couple of hours. Then we kissed and I moved my seat back..." the youth told police. "Then I took off her shirt and we had sex."

The youth told police he had sex with Mooney a second time two weeks later when she picked him up from his house at 11 p.m., gave him Smirnoff vodka and drove him to the East Lake Reservoir, where they had sex outside on a blanket.

Disruptive rumors

By early December, rumors about inappropriate contact between Mooney and her student were disrupting her ability to teach, a student assistant in Mooney's class later told police.

Mooney complained the youth was spreading the rumors, and he was called in to explain himself by assistant principals Kris Davidson and Domitila Pereira.

The youth laughed and said it wasn't true, the principals told police. He told the principals he would see if his friends had started the rumor and try to stop it because he felt bad for Mooney, the report says.

The principals did not investigate further because they considered the rumor unfounded, they told police. But in Mooney's classroom, her relationship with the youth soured, according to statements by the unidentified student assistant.

The assistant said the 17-year-old was coming late to physics class and being so disruptive that Mooney wrote him up on a detention notice.

The youth then sent a text message to the student assistant saying he was going to show administrators the messages he had from Mooney on his cellphone, according to the police record.

But it was Mooney who went to administrators for help when another high school student identified by police only as the 17-year-old's ex-girlfriend lashed out at her in anger, calling her names.

When administrators called the ex-girlfriend in for an explanation, she said she resented Mooney for having sex with her ex-boyfriend, the police report said.

Administrators called the 17-year-old in a second time to ask whether anything inappropriate happened with Mooney.

"(He) put his head in his hands and said that it happened twice," the police report reads. "(O)nce in Mooney's car and once by a lake."

Police brought Mooney in for questioning with two of her lawyers on Feb. 20, but she did not stay for the whole interview.

Her lawyers asked the interview to stop and told police that she would not answer any more questions.

rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342