Updated at 4:37 p.m.
ST. ALBANS — A Franklin County jury found former Georgia Elementary and Middle School teacher Matthew Toof not guilty of allegations that he repeatedly sexually assaulted one of his students over a period of nearly six years starting in 2016.
Toof, who was charged in 2021 with aggravated repeated sexual assault of a child and lewd and lascivious conduct involving a child, was acquited on both counts after jurors deliberated for about three hours Friday in Franklin County Superior criminal court.
The verdict came at the end of a three-day trial that saw both Toof and the female student — who was 11 at the time the alleged assaults began — take the stand.
Prosecutors had identified the student in court records only by her initials. VTDigger does not typically publish the names of minors involved in criminal cases or the names of victims of alleged sexual assault.
The case was further complicated by the fact — to which Toof himself testified — that the 42-year-old was having an affair with the student’s mother over at least some of the same time period during which he was accused of sexually assaulting the student.
Toof was fired by Georgia’s Board of School Directors in 2021, after he was charged.
Robert Kaplan, Toof’s attorney, praised the jury’s verdict in a statement Monday.
“After three years living under the dark cloud of horrific accusations, Matthew Toof was finally vindicated by a jury of his peers,” Kaplan said in an email. “Matt looks forward to rebuilding his life and moving on from this difficult experience.”
According to court records, the student first came forward with allegations that Toof had long been sexually assaulting her in late 2021.
Staff at the Georgia school had filed two reports with the state Department for Children and Families in 2016 recounting “concerning” interactions they observed between Toof and the student, prosecutors said. The agency did not accept either report, though, court records show, because the reports didn’t meet the criteria for sexual abuse.
Prosecutors alleged that Toof sexually assaulted the student in a school classroom, at the student’s home and while on vacation with the student and her family.
Kaplan told the jury in closing arguments Friday that the case came down to “a question of believing (the student) or not.” He urged the jury to instead believe Toof, who had repeatedly denied the student’s recounting and called the allegations “ludicrous.”
At the same time, Diane Wheeler — a deputy Franklin County state’s attorney who was prosecuting the case — argued to jurors that the student’s word stood on its own.
“That’s all the evidence you need to decide, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the defendant engaged in (this) sexual behavior,” Wheeler said Friday afternoon.
Bram Kranichfeld, the Franklin County State’s Attorney, said in an interview Monday that his office was “disappointed in the outcome in this case, but we respect the jury’s decision.”
“We continue to take seriously our mission to protect our most vulnerable victims, especially children, and to pursue justice against perpetrators of sexual violence,” Kranichfeld said.
He noted that the office cannot appeal the jury’s ruling.
