How did Modesto ex-principal charged with having sex with a minor get promoted?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- MCS promoted Chubon in July 2025, months after his Jan 2025 arraignment.
- GUSD probed internally in 2022 but allegedly still wrote him a recommendation.
- Chubon pleaded no contest on Jan 16, 2026; court convicted him of felony sexual offenses.
READ MORE
Investigation into ex-Modesto principal
Former Roosevelt Junior High School Principal Brian Chubon was convicted of crimes against a minor.
Expand All
Editors note: The story has been updated with a quote from Brian Chubon.
A former principal with Modesto City Schools was promoted after he’d already been charged for sexual acts with an underage student in Merced County. The district where this happened wrote him a letter of recommendation, a Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star investigation found.
Brian Chubon, 53, was vice principal at Gustine High School when he engaged in sexual acts with a 17-year-old student in spring 2022. Law enforcement was not contacted until the student came forward two years later.
Chubon was hired as vice principal of Mark Twain Junior High School in Modesto in July 2022. The Merced County District Attorney’s Office filed a criminal complaint in November 2024, following an investigation by the Gustine Police Department.
He was promoted to principal at Roosevelt Junior High School in July 2025 — seven months after he pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. Chubon left MCS last week, though the exact date and conditions of the separation were not clarified by the district.
Throughout his three and a half years at MCS, Chubon was criminally investigated, charged, arraigned and was going through legal processes for this case. He did not serve any jail time before or after criminal charges were filed against him.
In a phone call Friday morning, Chubon told The Bee that he pleaded no contest to protect himself. “I’m not guilty of anything,” he said before hanging up.
Chubon pleaded no contest to, and on Jan. 14 was convicted of, a felony charge of statutory rape of a minor. He was sentenced to one day in jail and two years probation. Court documents did not state that he had to register as a sex offender.
“The felony conviction reflects that the defendant abused his position of power to victimize a minor,” said Moises Onsurez, spokesperson for the Merced County District Attorney’s Office. “His criminal record puts the public on notice that the defendant should not be entrusted with the care of children.”
MCS states it did not know about the charges until Chubon cut a plea deal with the Merced County District Attorney’s Office. In a 550-word statement defending its hiring and promotion of Chubon, MCS spokesperson Sharokina Shams blamed Merced County agencies for not informing the public and the California Department of Justice about his case.
“Even a passing glance at the criminal complaint ... makes the details crystal clear: several public agencies in the county of Merced were aware of the criminal investigation but did not inform (MCS) — and do not appear to have informed their own community,” reads the statement.
Bryan Ballenger, superintendent of Gustine Union School District, said Chubon left the district in “good standing” to pursue the job in Modesto despite an internal investigation that happened in spring 2022. At the time, a school employee reported suspicious behavior between Chubon and the teenage student. Ballenger refused to comment on the investigation that followed as a result.
Ballenger also said GUSD had no record of MCS reaching out to his district around the time Chubon was applying for the position at Mark Twain in July 2022.
“If they had reached out to us, we would have answered their questions,” said Ballenger.
Shams’ statement added that a background check was done and GUSD submitted letters of recommendation for Chubon. MCS records show it also asked GUSD if Chubon was ever subject to an investigation. GUSD said “no,” according to Shams.
What exactly happened at Gustine High?
According to the police report, Chubon and the minor started a relationship in January 2022, when she was a senior.
Chubon would send the student explicit messages and photos through Instagram about wanting to be near her and have sex with her. On two occasions, he would ask her for help with something, either in his office or the nurse’s office at school, and then kiss her.
After one of the school events, an employee saw them leave together and reported it to the district.
During the district’s investigation, Chubon would message the student saying how he could get in trouble for this and that he has a wife. He would also “gaslight her to make it seem like they were not actually meeting up.” He told her to not say anything because he was afraid to go to jail and that once everything passes, he would leave his wife and that the two of them would be together.
Both Chubon and the student denied any relationship during the district’s internal investigation.
On multiple occasions, Chubon would pick her up in his car and take her around Gustine, where the two would engage in sexual activity.
After prom night on May 29, 2022, which Chubon was chaperoning, the two met up at a park and became intimate. According to the police report, he attempted to have sexual intercourse with her, but she pushed him off and said no. He stopped, and she performed oral sex on him.
While chaperoning a senior trip to Six Flags, Chubon spent most of his time with the student. As they sat on a bench, he caressed her thigh and told her he wanted to leave so they could have sex.
The last time the two had contact was in June 2022 when he showed up to her place of work. She told him she did not want to talk to him anymore, though he continued to contact her from various social media accounts.
In a letter, dated June 3, 2022, Chubon wrote how much he loved her and wanted to be a part of her future.
A month later, Chubon started his job at MCS.
In February 2024, the former student was interviewed by Gustine Police Department officers after her former coach reached out to them.
After this, the student reached out to Chubon’s wife through Facebook. The wife said she had no idea. Chubon had told her the 2022 investigation at GUSD was because he was having an affair with a co-worker, not his teenage student.
Gustine officers showed up to the district on Feb. 20, 2024, to follow up. In March, the district’s human resource specialist and Title IX coordinator, Marisol Juarez, went to the Police Department with documents regarding the district’s investigation. She said she was the one who brought up the suspicious activity between Chubon and the student in spring 2022.
Juarez recalled that the student appeared nervous while being interviewed.
A week later, an officer called Chubon for a statement. Chubon said they were just good friends and denied ever meeting up with her outside of school or sending anything inappropriate to her on Instagram. He admitted to writing her a letter about how proud he was of her when she graduated — though he said she was the only student to whom he wrote such a letter.
Chubon was vice principal at GUSD during the 2021-22 school year. Before that, he was a teacher in the Oakdale Joint Unified and Waterford Unified school districts, according to Transparent California.
Based on comments from the various school districts and agencies involved, it is unclear why MCS was not notified about the criminal investigation. Records regarding the case are not accessible through Merced County Superior Court’s online portal. The Modesto Bee and Merced Sun-Star obtained the documents in person.
Criminal cases are not available online, according to the portal.
“While we leave it to the agencies involved in the investigation to speak for themselves, if there was no fingerprinting because he was not arrested, that would explain why the background check through the Department of Justice came back clear,” read Shams’ statement.
MCS stated its calls to the Merced County DA’s Office have not been answered.
Assembly Bill 2534, which requires former employers to provide all relevant records related to “egregious misconduct” complaints and investigations during the hiring process for certified school employees, went into effect in January 2025. Egregious misconduct includes sex offenses.
Chubon was already an employee of MCS when the bill went into effect, but it is not yet known if the district conducted another background check when he was promoted to Roosevelt Junior High School.
The district would not confirm whether Chubon was fired or resigned, but said he was no a longer an employee of MCS as of last week and that it is conducting an internal personnel investigation.
This story was originally published January 23, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
