Shasta-County-Hired Investigator Faces Lawsuit Over Deeply Flawed Bay Area Probe

Parallels Drawn to Local Case Against Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis

May 1, 2026

A Bay Area teacher who spent 18 years at the Oakland School for the Arts is suing his former school district and the Oppenheimer Investigations Group for millions after what he describes as a deeply flawed third-party investigation that led to his termination and a criminal charge that was later dropped.

The case, detailed in a Feb. 28, 2026, San Francisco Chronicle article by Jill Tucker titled “‘Everyone assumed he had done it’: Bay Area teacher accused of abuse sues famous school for millions,” has drawn new attention in Shasta County because the same investigative firm — the Oppenheimer Group — was hired by county officials to examine allegations of managerial misconduct against Registrar of Voters Clint Curtis.

The Taylor Case

According to the Chronicle, after sexual abuse allegations surfaced against the teacher, Jeremy Taylor, the Oppenheimer Investigations Group conducted an independent third-party review in 2022. The Oakland School for the Arts terminated Taylor based on the firm’s findings.

Taylor’s attorneys later obtained thousands of pages of evidence from police files, witness statements, and other sources. They argued the initial investigations were deeply flawed. In March 2025, the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office dropped the criminal charge against Taylor, citing insufficient evidence. Months earlier, the woman who accused him, identified as Jane Doe in court records, dropped her civil lawsuit.

The Chronicle's review of police files, witness statements, and other records raised serious questions about the legitimacy of the investigations. Taylor told the newspaper the Oppenheimer investigator “decided what evidence to include, who was credible and what conclusions to make,” effectively playing “the role of police, prosecutor, the judge, the jury, the executioner.”

The fallout extended far beyond Taylor — to his family, friends, former students, and even Doe herself. Taylor spent three years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees to clear his name.

Relevance to Shasta County's Investigation of Clint Curtis

The firm used the “preponderance of the evidence” standard in the Taylor case — the same standard applied in the Shasta County investigation of Curtis. According to the Chronicle's investigation, Oppenheimer cherry-picked the evidence to reach this conclusion.

Shasta County Supervisor Allen Long has defended the choice of investigator, stating that the Oppenheimer Group is the “Gold Standard” for investigations. However, the Taylor lawsuit has fueled local debate over whether that description holds up and over the risks of rushing to judgment.

Critics argue that relying on the lower “preponderance of the evidence” standard — rather than the criminal standard of “beyond a reasonable doubt” — and limiting the accused’s ability to present a full defense runs counter to the principle of presuming innocence until proven guilty.

Additionally, Shasta Unfiltered was advised that Clint Curtis has filed three separate complaints against Shasta County Counsel Joseph Larmour with the California State Bar. A search of the California Bar's site shows that those complaints have not, as of this date, resulted in any disciplinary actions. However, it calls into question whether personal animus is at play and whether Larmour is acting without bias.

Additional Local Concerns

Concerned citizens and many Election Office Workers and Election Observers voiced their support for Curtis at the April 28th meeting of the Board of Supervisors, stating that they have witnessed stonewalling, harassment, and insubordination from several of the workers in the Elections Office who they believe are trying to sabotage Curtis.

At the meeting, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors voted 3-2 against censuring Curtis (Supervisors Long and Matt Plummer dissenting) and will wait until after the election to bring the agenda item back, creating a cloud that continues to hang over the Registrar of Voters heading into the June 2 election, where he faces a challenge from former Assistant ROV Joanna Francescut.

Other questions have surfaced about possible irregularities inside the Shasta County Elections Office. The former Assistant Registrar of Voters, Joanna Francescut, who was terminated from her position 11 months ago, was removed from the interoffice communications system at that time. She and another unidentified individual reportedly gained unauthorized access to that system on October 17, 2025, six months after her termination. Some observers are asking whether there may have been collusion involved aimed at smearing Curtis in the months and weeks leading up to the June 2 election. Curtis has given the evidence of unauthorized access to the County's IT Department and to the DOJ.

A Cautionary Tale

As the Taylor lawsuit proceeds, it serves as a cautionary tale, local residents say, about the human cost of flawed investigations and the importance of due process — even when high-profile public officials or beloved educators stand accused.