CCSD teacher charged with sexually assaulting student makes court appearance

A Green Valley High School theater teacher is accused of raping one of his students inside a campus dressing room days before her graduation, according to a detailed arrest report.

Anthony Coffield, 35, faces two counts of sexual assault and one count of a school employee engaging in a sexual act with a pupil 16 or older.

Authorities said Coffield had arranged for the girl to pick up a cord for her graduation gown after school hours on May 21, just two days before the victim was set to graduate.

The attack was reported to the Henderson Police Department’s special victims unit Aug. 18, investigators wrote in Coffield’s 63-page arrest report. The victim told investigators she held off on reporting the assault because she believed reporting would jeopardize her graduation.

The victim, whose name and age were redacted from the report, told detectives that Coffield forced sex on her for more than 20 minutes inside a dressing room at the school’s theater department. She said she learned about a month later that she was pregnant and experienced a miscarriage, according to the report.

Arrest report details

The victim told investigators she would frequently confide in Coffield, adding that she had come to view her teacher as someone between a close friend and father figure, according to the report.

After the victim arrived to meet Coffield on the school’s campus May 21, he invited her into a costume room where he “quickly” shut the door behind him and began kissing her, grabbing her by the neck and pushing her against the closed door, the report stated.

The victim resisted and asked Coffield to stop, to which Coffield responded, “You know you don’t want to do that,” detectives wrote.

The victim said Coffield then asked her to stay in the dressing room so he could “see if the coast was clear” outside the dressing room, investigators wrote.

“As she was leaving, Coffield told (the victim), ‘Alright, let me give you your cords,’” the report states. “After being handed her cord, (the victim) advised she couldn’t think clearly but was able to ask Coffield ‘why,’ to which Coffield replied, ‘do you know when you see someone, like you really love your partner … and you see someone you just gotta have them.’”

Before the student left, Coffield told her she was special and added, “There is just something about you I was willing to risk losing my job and girlfriend over,” according to the report. The victim asked Coffield if he had ever had sex with a student before, which Coffield emphatically denied, investigators wrote.

The student told detectives she took an at-home pregnancy test in June that resulted in a positive reading and became “extremely depressed” for about two weeks after learning of the pregnancy. The student told detectives later that she believed she experienced a miscarriage and took a second pregnancy test, which revealed a negative result, according to the report.

In a separate interview with detectives, Coffield told detectives the encounter with the student was short and nothing out of the ordinary, and that he remembered her picking up the graduation cord.

“I gave it to her, and then she left, and that was it,” Coffield reportedly told investigators. He added that he did not want to be put in a situation where he was alone with a student.

Coffield asked detectives about the allegations against him and ended the interview short after stating he wanted an attorney present. Coffield also submitted a buccal swab of his cheek and surrendered his phone to investigators.

The arrest report also noted that forensic DNA testing of the victim’s underwear concluded semen found in the crotch area could have only been produced by Coffield or any of his paternal male relatives.

Bail hearing next week

Coffield is due back in court for a bail hearing on Monday. Online jail records show that Coffield remains in custody at the Henderson Detention Center, where he was booked after his Nov. 26 arrest.

His attorney, David Brown, declined to comment after a brief court hearing Tuesday.

On Monday, a Henderson Police Department spokesperson said Coffield’s arrest stemmed from a monthlong investigation coordinated with the Clark County district attorney’s office.

Green Valley High School Principal Kent Roberts said in a letter to parents shared by the Clark County School District that the school was aware that a CCSD teacher was arrested “on charges related to an inappropriate relationship with a student.”

An archived version of the Green Valley High School website from July shows that Coffield was listed as a performing arts and theater teacher. But as of Tuesday, Coffield’s name no longer appeared on a roster of teachers on the school’s website.

Coffield was removed from his assignment at Green Valley High School in August, a CCSD spokesperson said in an email Tuesday.

Contact Casey Harrison at charrison@reviewjournal.com.