The November trial date for a former Benicia Unified school teacher accused of child molestations will go ahead, as scheduled, for now, in Solano County Superior Court, but not before a Solano County Superior Court judge considers a motion to quash information about one or more of the alleged victims.
Matthew Joseph Shelton, 43, who faces 12 felony counts of lewd and lascivious acts on four children under 14, appeared Monday in Department 23 in Vallejo for a trial management conference in the Justice Building. There Judge John B. Ellis substituted for Bryan J. Kim, court records show.
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Shelton remains out of custody on a pretrial services contract. He is represented by Napa-based attorney Amanda I. Bevins. Deputy District Attorney Barry Shapiro leads the prosecution.
Also in court on Monday was state Deputy Attorney General Joseph Halabrin, who withdrew a motion to quash. Also appearing in court was David Gallegos, an attorney in the Solano County Counsel’s Office. He is seeking to quash information about one or more minors linked to the case, court records indicate.
Ellis eventually scheduled a new trial confirmation and a motion to quash evidence for 9 a.m. Oct. 6 in Department 15. A trial management conference for 9 a.m. Nov. 3 and a jury trial at 9 a.m. Nov. 5 remain on calendar.
The latest development in the case comes after a December 2024 preliminary hearing, with Kim ruling there was enough evidence to hold Shelton for trial. It also comes as a Solano County Superior Court judge previously ordered Napa Valley Unified officials to release public records of the defendant’s alleged sexual abuse while he worked in the district in 2007. (Court records did not indicate if those records have been released.)
Shelton was tried on sexual misconduct charges during his tenure in Napa but was later acquitted.
The Solano County case centers on similar charges related to his alleged sexual misconduct in 2022 while working in the Benicia school district.
While all the Napa records, specifically Shelton’s employment documents, were ordered released, four of the requested documents in the possession of BUSD will be withheld to protect the identity of the minors in the case.
In the BUSD case, Shelton, in an amended complaint filed Aug. 12, 2024, is charged with five counts of a lewd act on one child, two counts on another, one on another, and four on a fourth child while he taught classes at Robert Semple Elementary School.
Wording in the complaint includes “factors in aggravation,” and they are that the victims were “particularly vulnerable” and that Shelton “took advantage of a position of trust.”
Additionally, court records indicate the court has subpoenaed records from Highland Elementary in Vallejo, Adventist Health in Vallejo, and Contra Costa Regional Medical Center in Martinez.
While Shelton no longer works in Benicia Unified, a records search Monday at the California Commission of Teacher Credentialing website shows that Benicia Unified officials informed the CTC that Shelton resigned March 23, 2023.
However, afterward that same year, Shelton was able to gain employment at Helms Middle School in Pinole in the West Contra Costra Unified School District. At the time his credential was still active.
On March 11, 2024, his teaching credential was suspended, but the CTC did not actually revoke his credential until July 28, 2024, records indicate.
During a previous court hearing in July 2024, now-retired Judge Robert Bowers denied a discovery motion submitted by defense attorney Bevins to force the Solano County DA’s Office to request a confidential juvenile case file from Placer County. It was unclear how the confidential Placer County documents are specifically related to the Shelton case, which Bowers, hearing the request, called “tragic, quite frankly.”
Looking directly at Bevins, Bowers then mentioned Evidence Code section 1042, which protects the identity of informants in a criminal proceeding.
“I have a responsibility to make sure this person (a minor) is protected,” added Bowers.
Official court records show that the judge indicated he was inclined to release records subpoenaed from Solano County Health and Social Services to Bevins with “appropriate protective orders.”
Misdemeanor sexual abuse charges involving four of his students had previously been filed against Shelton in Napa, where he was working as a third-grade teacher at Phillips Edison Elementary School in April 2007. After a six-day jury trial in 2008, however, he was acquitted of six counts of child molestation because, according to reports at the time of the trial, three girls testified and Shelton’s attorney argued that their stories were fabricated and inconsistent with one another.