Former teacher sues NC sheriff after charges of sex crimes against student dropped

FORSYTH COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — A former teacher filed a lawsuit against the Forsyth County sheriff and multiple Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office investigators after charges alleging sex crimes against a student were dropped.

Brian Jacob Weavil was charged in 2019 with two counts of statutory sex offense against a child, two counts of sex offense – teacher against student and two counts of indecent liberties. Four and a half years later, all of the charges were dismissed for “insufficient evidence,” according to the lawsuit.

“The accusations were totally false, and Mr. Weavil is completely innocent,” Attorney Zack Ezor said. “The investigators who were looking into the allegations, who went into red flag after red flag after red flag, ignored his willingness to protest and talk about his innocence, the glaring evidence of just the impossibility of what was being alleged.”

In the lawsuit, Weavil accuses Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough, as well as three officers involved in the case, of malicious prosecution, fabrication of evidence and negligence. The lawsuit asks the court to issue an order demanding that the defendants pay an unspecified amount in compensatory and punitive damages.

The sheriff’s office launched an investigation in 2019 after the Walkertown High School resource officer learned of an allegation of sexual misconduct involving a teacher and a student under the age of 15.

Weavil’s lawsuit claims that “the charges were based on bizarre, conflicting allegations of sexual assault by a mentally ill student” who “had a well-known history of making fabricated allegations against others.”

Teachers and administrators at Walkertown High School knew claims made by the student had previously been investigated and found to be unsupported, the lawsuit states. Weavil reportedly warned the student against “crying wolf,” and the student told a peer that Weavil would “regret saying that.”

Weavil learned what the student had said and then asked other teachers and students to help him avoid being alone with the student, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims that months after he talked to the student about “crying wolf,” the student accused Weavil of two instances of sexual assault at the school with others present. The student also accused Weavil of paying for lewd photos taken at school using his phone.

According to the lawsuit, the claims were false, no one corroborated the student’s stories and no physical evidence was found to support the allegations against Weavil.

The student was hospitalized for psychiatric care after the allegations were made.

“Defendants omitted material facts when seeking felony warrants against Mr. Weavil,” including that the student who accused him “had a history of making false claims of sexual assault,” the lawsuit states.

A year after Weavil was charged, two students told a teacher that the student who accused him of sexual assault had boasted about framing Weavil, the lawsuit claims.

“But for Defendants’ deliberate withholding of information, no charges would have been filed. Instead, charges hung over Mr. Weavil and his family for nearly five years,” the lawsuit states.

According to Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, Weavil started with the district as a teacher at East Forsyth High School in 2001 and resigned in 2006.

He was rehired at East Forsyth in 2007 and remained a teacher there until he transferred to Walkertown High School in 2014.

In August 2018, Weavil went on an approved leave from his teaching position but continued to serve as a substitute teacher at Walkertown High School.

He now works as a forestry biologist, according to the lawsuit.

“Before he was wrongly arrested and prosecuted for child sexual assault, Mr. Weavil gave seventeen years of his life to our public schools,” the lawsuit states. “He was highly respected, had an exceptional resume, and was enrolled in a prestigious principal-training program.”