Ex-Anoka teacher charged with assaulting students seeks accuser s therapy notes startribune.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from startribune.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
SEVERE WX : Special Weather Statement View Alerts
Former Minnesota theater teacher accused of abusing boys
A former Minnesota theater teacher who was an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ students is charged with 10 felony counts of sexually abusing minors.
Posted: May 10, 2021 9:07 AM
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) A former Anoka theater teacher who was an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ students is charged with 10 felony counts of sexually abusing minors.
Forty-seven-year-old Jefferson Fietek taught arts theater at Anoka Middle School and created the non-profit group Young Artists Initiative that operated out of a St. Paul church.
According to court documents, the five male victims are either former middle school students of participants in the theater non-profit. Fietek s attorney, Jack Rice, says they deny all allegations and “look forward to the trial that will be coming in the future.”
KVRR Local News
May 10, 2021
MINNEAPOLIS – A former Anoka, Minn. teacher who was an outspoken advocate for LGBTQ students is charged with 10 felony counts of sexually abusing minors.
Forty-seven-year-old Jefferson Fietek taught arts theater at Anoka Middle School and created the non-profit group Young Artists Initiative that operated out of a St. Paul church.
According to court documents, the five male victims are either former middle school students of participants in the theater non-profit.
Fietek’s attorney, Jack Rice, says they deny all allegations and “look forward to the trial that will be coming in the future.”
Nicholas Senn It was like he was doing it to exorcise his own demons, or he was doing it for his own purposes rather than doing it just for the sake of the students, Gokey said. He was taking on this heroism that just seemed out of place.
Fietek s prominence soon outgrew the classroom and theater stage. He gave an address at the White House in 2011 for the U.S. Department of Education s first-ever LGBTQ youth summit. He won a national award for LGBTQIA Youth Advocate Educator of the Year in 2013. He ran unsuccessfully as a DFL candidate for the Minnesota House of Representatives in 2014. He was featured in the New York Times, CNN and an award-winning 2015 documentary on LGBTQ youth, Same Difference, that featured the story of Justin Aaberg, an Anoka High School student who died by suicide in 2010 at age 15.