What happened to your child at a Benicia Unified school was not okay.

Robert Semple Elementary, on East Third Street. Matthew Turner, over on Rose Drive. One fifth-grade teacher the district put in a classroom in 2015, six former pupils who have since sued it, and a criminal trial that was still running in Solano County Superior Court in August. He had been arrested once before, in Napa, in 2007, and acquitted; the mother of the first girl to sue told the Vallejo Sun a quick internet search turned that up. If your child sat in that classroom, or went on one of his field trips (or if you did, years back), keep reading. This is about you.

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This applies to you no matter what

Your child had him for fifth grade at Robert Semple. Fall of 2015 through December 2022, eight school years of him, any one of them. The criminal counts only run 2018 to 2022, and the lawsuits cover about the same stretch, but an earlier year doesn't shut you out. The questions still work.
It was Matthew Turner, not Semple. The third lawsuit is about a girl who was six or seven at Turner in 2019, and it says it happened on campus and on a district field trip, in his own car. One campus is not the whole story.
Your child told the principal, or a classmate did, and nothing came of it. The first complaint says a fellow pupil reported him in December 2022 and nobody went looking for other children. The second says four girls went to the principal that fall and came away feeling she didn't believe them. (The district says its own investigator found the allegations against the principal unsubstantiated. Its finding, not a court's.)
It was smaller than what the criminal charges describe. A hand that stayed too long. A hug nobody asked for. The after-school program, where the first complaint says some of it happened. The complaints describe touching, and a school answers for that too.
Your child is eleven now and will not talk about it. Nobody is going to make them. You are the one we talk to first, and the deadline runs on their birthday, decades out, not on this year's calendar.
You were his pupil yourself, at Semple, and you're grown now. The class he had in 2015 is in its early twenties. This is for you too.

The Benicia Unified record: the charges, the three lawsuits, the trial, and when

None of what follows is ours. The Solano County District Attorney wrote it, and three sets of plaintiffs' lawyers, and a judge, and the reporters who read the court file, and we link to every line. Where a sentence says a complaint alleges something, that is all it is: a claim in a filed lawsuit, not a finding. The teacher has been charged and has not been convicted of anything. And because this page covers a whole district: the criminal case and the three complaints below name Robert Semple Elementary and Matthew Turner Elementary. Any other Benicia Unified school is covered because the same district ran it, not because a separate record on that campus is cited here.

February 23, 2024

Parents learned of it from the Vallejo Sun, not from the district; the superintendent's email came after the story ran and never used his name. What the Sun found went back further than the charges, too. In 2007 he'd been arrested in Napa, where he taught third grade, over four girls of eight and nine, and a jury acquitted him in 2008. Parents had never been told that. The charges themselves: Matthew Joseph Shelton, 42, in a fifth-grade room at Robert Semple since 2015 and a district substitute before that, five felony counts of lewd acts with a child under 14, Solano County, all of it for 2022. Vallejo Sun.

April 9, 2024

First lawsuit. Filed in Solano County Superior Court by Jane Doe, a fifth-grader in his Semple class in the fall of 2022, against him and against Benicia Unified. The claims: negligent hiring, negligent supervision. By then prosecutors had two more counts on him as well, for a second girl, 2018 and 2019. Her complaint's sharpest allegation is about December 2022: a classmate reported him to administrators, and (the complaint says) nobody at the school or the district then went looking to see whether there were other children. The district, for its part, picks the story up there: he was put on leave December 21, 2022, and police and Child Protective Services were called. He resigned June 2, 2023. Come July 1 he was an assistant principal in another district. Vallejo Sun.

April 24, 2024

Four more. Jane Does 1 through 4, all in his class in 2022-23, filed the second suit in Solano County Superior Court against the district and the teacher. It alleges the girls told the principal that fall and she made it clear she did not believe them, that nobody looked for other victims, and that after he resigned she took steps to see that 'nothing negative' was said about him in reference checks. She is not a defendant. The district put her on paid leave two weeks later; in December it said an investigator had found the allegations against her unsubstantiated. Vallejo Sun.

April 29, 2024

The third suit, and the one with a number: Jane Doe (A.A.), a minor, by her guardian ad litem, v. Benicia Unified School District, Solano County Superior Court No. CU24-03231, Judge Christine A. Carringer. She was six or seven, at Matthew Turner Elementary, in 2019. The complaint alleges it happened on campus and on a district field trip, that district employees saw him driving her in his own vehicle, that the district hired him despite the 2007 arrest, and that before 2019 it 'knew of other student and parent complaints of serious misconduct' about him. Six causes of action, negligent hiring through breach of the mandatory duty to report. Complaint, Solano Superior Court.

May 6, 2024

The Vallejo Sun tied the pieces together: two of the criminal counts filed in March concern the Turner girl in the April 29 suit, and the Semple principal was on paid leave while the district investigated the claims in the lawsuits. Six children, three suits, two campuses. Vallejo Sun.

December 5, 2024

He had sued both districts to keep their files on him sealed. Solano County Superior Court Judge Stephen Gizzi ruled against him and the records came out. Among Benicia's: the principal's email about a December 21, 2022 meeting in which she told him to keep physical contact with pupils to high fives and handshakes. He never taught in the district again after that day. By then the charge sheet was 12 felony counts. Vallejo Sun.

March 17, 2025

After a preliminary hearing that ran on and off from December, a Solano County judge held him to answer on all 12 counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, four girls. Trial was set for October 8, 2025. He was out of custody on a pretrial services contract. SFist.

August 14, 2026

On trial. Bay City News reported the case was before a Solano County jury, and that Benicia Unified had moved his wife, a fourth-grade teacher in the district, to an office job after parents objected. As of mid-September no verdict had been reported anywhere we can find. When there is one, this line changes. Local News Matters.

We checked this on September 13, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 14, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Benicia Unified School District lawsuit

The district. Benicia Unified School District, a public corporation in the complaint's words, is the defendant in all three suits. It ran Robert Semple and Matthew Turner, it hired him, it kept him in a fifth-grade classroom for eight school years, and it answers for what it knew and what it did with it. A teacher who abuses a pupil answers for himself; the criminal court is dealing with that now. The civil question is the one the six families have put to the district: negligent hiring, supervision and retention, a mandated reporter's duty, a failure to warn. The knowledge part is pleaded three ways. Arrested in Napa in 2007 and hired anyway, the complaints say. Reported by a classmate in December 2022, the first complaint says, and nobody looked for more children. And the Turner complaint says the district knew of other complaints about him before 2019. The district's answer so far has come through its superintendent: leave the same day, police called, and an outside consultant who told the school board in April 2024 its hiring procedures were 'clear and comprehensive.' No court has ruled on any of it.

Because the district is a public body, a few things are different, and a lawyer will walk you through them. There are no punitive damages against it, ever. There is also no cap on what a jury can award, and nobody has to file a government claim before suing. California took that step out of childhood sexual abuse cases altogether, whatever year it was.

The teacher is a defendant in the first two suits as well. Your family's case does not wait for his verdict, and it does not need it. It does not need the other three cases either. Each child's facts stand on their own.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse at a public school

Until the child turns 40, or five years from the day they understood what it did to them, whichever is later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor before 2024 (Code of Civil Procedure 340.11), and it is why we ask the birth year: born in 1987 or later and the door is open on age alone.

Because the district is a public body, one more thing: normally you would have to file a government claim before suing one. Not with this kind of claim, and not for any year. Government Code 905(m) and Code of Civil Procedure 340.11(s) take that step off the table. One footnote while we're on statutes: anything after January 1, 2024 has no deadline at all, under Code of Civil Procedure 340.1. If you were born before 1987, because you were his pupil somewhere else or someone else's pupil here, the road is different: 40 has arrived or is close, and it runs through the discovery rule and what the district knew. A lawyer decides that one, on your facts, before anyone says anything.

Plainly: no child from these classrooms is anywhere near out of time. The ones in the lawsuits were six to eleven years old between 2019 and 2022, so for them 40 is the late 2040s, which is almost silly to write down. What fades is not the calendar. It is the class list, the field-trip permission slip, the email the principal sent, and the friend who remembers what your child said at the time.

Your situation still qualifies even if

Your child never said a word, and you found out from the news like everyone else.
Your child liked him. Teacher of the month, May 2022, the morning message on Twitter. That is in the record, too.
It never went as far as what the counts describe, and you figure that means it doesn't count.
Your child was interviewed by a detective and is not one of the four in the criminal case. Most of the children in the lawsuits aren't either.
You moved out of Benicia. Plenty of Semple families have.
You're not sure it was him. It might have been someone else on staff. Say that, and say where.

Schools covered

Robert Semple Elementary School at 2015 East Third Street: his fifth-grade classroom from 2015 until December 2022, plus the after-school program there. Matthew Turner Elementary School at 540 Rose Drive, which the third lawsuit names for 2019, a district field trip included. Those two are the campuses the records name. Joe Henderson Elementary, Mary Farmar Elementary, Benicia Middle School, Benicia High School and Liberty High School are covered because the same district runs them, not because any record on this page names them. A different district, Vallejo or Napa or Martinez? The questions still work. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue the Benicia Unified School District?

Six families already have, in three lawsuits filed in April 2024, and one of them carries a Solano County case number. Whether you can depends mostly on the child's birth year and when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out. Nobody has to file a government claim first.

The teacher hasn't been convicted. Does that matter for a lawsuit?

Not for whether you can bring one. The three suits were filed while the criminal case was still at the charging stage. A civil case asks what the district knew and did, on a lower standard of proof, and it does not wait for a jury in the other courtroom. If he is acquitted, a lawyer will tell you honestly what that changes and what it does not.

My child was in his class but says nothing happened. Should I still call?

You can. Nothing about the call obliges you or your child to anything, and nobody will press a child who does not want to talk. The mother of one of the four girls in the second suit told the Vallejo Sun her daughter was afraid even to be interviewed by the detective. It is fine to be that family.

What kind of lawyer do I need?

A civil lawyer who sues school districts for institutional sexual abuse, not only the individual. That is the only kind we work with, and the firm we work with takes California cases wherever you live now.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.