Law&Crime Sidebar - 'Predator' Teacher Exposed by Teen's Secret Diary: Police

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

David Sommer, 51, is behind bars in Sarasota County, Florida, accused of using his position as a choir teacher to allegedly prey on at least one female student. The teen's parents discovered entries about Sommer in their daughter's diary, which kicked off a quick-moving investigation into the two's communications and alleged sexual contact. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber takes a look at bodyworn camera footage of Sommer's arrest and analyzes the evidence against him with civil litigation attorney Chris Klotz.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Get your free, 30-second personalized assessment TODAY at https://PDSDebt.com/sidebar.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was apparently a teenager's diary entries that started a police investigation that culminated in her teacher's arrest just days later. We're taking a look at the high school educators' arrest and the evidence that Florida prosecutors say they've gathered against him. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. A Florida high school choir teacher has been behind bars for months, accused of sexual battery against one of his students. and we obtained the body cam footage from Northport police showing David Summer being detained outside the school on March 24th. Take a look. Yep. All right.

I was going to search one more time before you get my... All right. Just so you know, your phone is going to be coming with us. You can be taken for evidence, okay? Just so you're aware. Easy. I'm going to do. All right.

All right. Pop open here. It's easier if you sit in the car with your knees pointing towards the front door or towards the side door like here. You lean that way, kind of lean on your shoulder. It's not the most comfortable, but it'll do for a little bit. All right. Thanks, guys. Thank you.

Appreciate it. But that's only part of it. According to a warrant, Summer had reportedly been sending inappropriate text messages to one of his students, a teenage girl, which allegedly escalated to him touching her in his classroom. According to the court docket, the 51-year-old was hit with. Six charges, sexual battery upon a person 12 or older but less than 18 by a person in familial or custodial authority. That is a first degree felony. Three counts of an authority figure soliciting sexual conduct with a student, which are second degree felonies. By the way, look how specific these charges are. The fact that the legislature had to create laws specifically

targeting those in authority positions or familiar relations just shows you what kind of world we live in. Also, there's one count of unlawful use of a communications device, one count of harmful, explicit communication to a minor, both are third-degree felonies. Serious case, right? Serious case. And because of how serious these accusations are, Summer was denied bond. He's been detained since the early stages of this investigation. So I want to take you through this case. I want to take you through what the victim claims happened, what was going on behind closed doors, according to her. Now, the warrant states that a Northport officer responded to Northport High School after a report of a relationship between a male teacher and a female student. The apparent victim

was waiting to speak with the officer in the principal's office accompanied by her parents. The girl's father apparently told the officer that earlier that day, he had gone into his daughter's bedroom and found her journal, that he began reading parts of it and realized she was describing a sexual relationship with her chorus teacher, David Summer. This one's shocking. According to the warrant, the girls' parents immediately pulled her out of class to get to the bottom of what was going on. And it turns out that when word came that she was being released from school, Summer was reportedly right in the middle of assaulting her. The warrant says the family spoke in the parking lot.

Quote, he stated he asked her if anything else has happened between her and David that was not inside the diary. He said she told him that today David had physically touched her again, but this time he put his hands down her pants. So at this point, they all went to the principal's office to report what the teen said was going on and the police were contacted. And according to the student, she and Summer started texting in the summer of 2025 after she attended a camp with him. He got her phone number. What she said happened next is something, you know, if these allegations are true, we see time and time again. She claims they had regular conversations about normal topics, but that eventually shifted the discussions of her sexual experiences. We call that grooming if these allegations are true.

And after the teen made her allegations on March 24th, the Sarasota School Board police detained summer, and then they turned him over to the Northport Police Department. Investigators say that he refused to provide a statement, but a judge had signed a warrant for, quote, body standards, such as fingerprints, and after that he was released. But then you go to two days later on March 26 and multiple officers responded to a local law office to take this guy into custody. Hi. There's a bunch of us. Can you have David Somers step out here? Can you get us five minutes? I'll bring him right out to you. You got one. Three?

One. Either that or we're going to have to come back and get him. Thank you. All right, here we go. All right. Spin around for me. Just punch some palms together like you're praying. It's a little bit more comfortable. You don't have anything else on you, bud?

Okay. All right. Let's take a walk down. Okay. All right, thank you, sir. Sorry. Thank you. Take care.

He's in, peasant. Okay, for what the stairs, I'm gonna kind of walk in front of you. Can you both of sign? Yeah. Yeah, I got you. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm a good. I get cards into it. All right here this black truck. I'm just going to search a rest of you. I don't have had you now, but. With your plane with your car. Is your backseat open, at least for now? Or do you have a bunch of stuff in back?

Actually, hey, meals, you're good. Obviously, you understand why we're here. Appreciate you not doing anything wild. You want to switch outside. I don't know. Do you want to? I mean, it's not. Yeah, I can't.

Sorry. These are a little bit more comfortable for you to anyway. Yeah, it's a little bit less space. You don't. You went ahead and perform me. There's nothing to confirm. It's just us, huh? I have no question to you know.

Do you have anything on? No. Call on. I mean. So that's it. Okay. You show all this. Be sure all of a sudden, 1017, 766, Hudson Avenue in Sarasota,

and 1015, April 1. What's that? Can you go back to the end? Yes. Hudson Avenue, so, so, so. I'll get GD to email you the warrant, and then they'll have to, you can probably print it and just hand it to name the line. By the way, I got to say something.

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at PDSdebt.com slash sidebar. Now, in the meantime, officers were gathering as much evidence as they could. According to the warrant, quote, the victim brought her journal, which was collected as evidence along with her cell phone, which she provided consent for it to be forensically downloaded. Due to the very short time frame from when the crime occurred to the time reported to law enforcement, I directed her along with her parents to go to the Northport ER Sarasota Memorial to conduct a sack kit.

sexual assault kit. With the sane nurse, I also inquired if they would be willing to participate in a forensic interview at the Child Protection Center. She and her parents all agreed and were more than willing to attend the interview as soon as possible. And by the way, with forensic interviews, these are very specialized, very specific, sensitive interviews if you're dealing with these conversations of alleged sexual abuse or sexual activity with a child or with a teenager. And we'll talk about them a little bit more. And to be clear, look, he's innocent and less proven guilty. Although, let's talk about this. This is going to be a problem for potential defense, it seems. Thanks to the forensic download of the reported victim's cell phone, detectives had access to more

than 400 pages of text messages between her and Summer. In addition to multiple mentions of sexual activity, Summer also allegedly tells her he loves her several times. Now, I'm going to be very clear. The warrant details what this teen apparently told forensic interviewers, but it is just far too graphic to relay here. But if the allegations are true, Summers' actions were brazen, even allegedly going so far as to lay on top of this victim in a corner of the classroom, which she says he referred to as our corner. And the warrant narrative ends with this heartbreaking statement. Quote, she detailed in her interview that the reason she did not come forward was because she felt that if it was just happening to her, he would not do it to anyone else. Now, as Summers case has moved through the legal system, we actually got an idea of the type and volume of evidence that Sarasota County prosecutors have been able to gather.

For example, a witness and evidence list was submitted to the court, and it includes entries like the probable cause affidavit and arrests warrants, the alleged victim's diary, text messages, Snapchat messages, emails. And the list also includes tablet messages from some of Summers' family members, plus important school documents that Summer would have been required to sign, like acceptance receipt of school board of Sarasota County HR policies and procedures, and Department of Quarrel and Vocal Studies, Travel Guidelines, Regulations, procedures. And prosecutors could potentially also introduce jail tablet messages. And this is interesting because an SD card, apparently showing security.

security footage at the high school, that may be a part of this case as well. And while it may not show the inside of the classroom, that kind of visual evidence could potentially be used to corroborate when the victim was seen near Summer's classroom, right? Okay, so to help me break this down, I want to welcome on civil litigation attorney Chris Klotz. Chris, thanks so much for coming on. First, let's just talk about the civil arena, before we get to the criminal arena, if you hear of a teacher accused of something like this. What is the potential liability for the school? What is the potential liability for the school district? Because I will tell you right now at the time of this recording, I haven't seen a lawsuit filed or anything, but I got to ask that question.

Yeah, absolutely. And we do these cases all the time at Alstockwick increase in overholt. We've got cases where teachers have had inappropriate relationships with students. The number one thing you really want to look for is what did the school have that would have caused them to be on notice that this teacher was doing that. And a couple interesting things that, you know, the student said in the interview was that the teacher said, oh, we always get caught. And if you remember in reading the affidavit, there was an instance where there was another, I think, female teacher perhaps that came to the door and was knocking on the door. And, you know, obviously when that teacher, whoever the female was, it came in the room, there was something

going on. The statement said that they had been on the floor, you know, engaged, in highly inappropriate behavior. So things like that where a teacher's been in there or they may have gotten caught or a teacher may have seen something or an adult may have seen something can put the school on notice because the school needs to have some type of notice

that there was something inappropriate going on, which is why that's an element of the case. I just want to back up to that. What does a school do? They interview them. They probably do a background check. I imagine, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, how these interviews happen.

Do they look at their prior work history? But how do you know? Like, how do you know, how do you properly do a thorough check? Because it does make me wonder, is there any way to protect against this? It seems to me there are probably cases where this came out of left field. We had no idea. I mean, what more can they do to do a background check versus looking back? Maybe we didn't ask enough questions or we didn't look at this, this X, Y, and Z.

I don't know. Well, there's all different kinds of ways that a school can have notice. And I've seen teachers bounce around from school to school to school, school to school. They maybe have some reports that there was some type of inappropriate conduct. Maybe it didn't rise to the level of criminal prosecution, but there was some, you know, report by a student that, you know, something inappropriate had happened. And then they let the school, the teacher, you know, resigned from that position. And then the next school district over, they've got another job. And so that can also be noticed. So if a, if a teacher has bounced

around a lot and they have not fully vetted their prior history at prior places of employment, then yeah, that can actually create the notice as well. And, you know, administrations have an obligation to kind of keep tabs on what's going on. You know, check in, you know, do room checks with the teacher, see what's going on, see if there's kids hanging out in the teacher's room in between classes when you would not normally expect kids to be in there. So, I mean, that's something that between classes, administration can walk around and just do some spot checks and say,

hey, are there some, you know, children, students hanging out in this teacher's room on a consistent basis that don't really have a purpose for being here? here and then, you know, there may be a legitimate purpose, perhaps, but ask questions. And so, you know, the administration has an obligation to kind of keep the, keep a finger on the pulse of what's going on around the school and doing background checks. Are there prohibitions against teachers texting or social messaging, social media messaging students? Is that, like, is that in a contract with the teacher when they join a school? You cannot have the children's, the child, the students number under any circumstance. If you want to communicate, you do it through the parent.

Is that like, is that something they sign? So, you know, there are some school districts that do have policies like that. I have seen some school districts that have policies where you don't friend somebody on Facebook or you don't friend somebody on Instagram or you don't friend somebody on Snapchat and you don't have those types of communications. I think every school district probably has their own policy on that, but I have seen that some to do. I have seen some that don't. And, you know, really just in a best practices world as an adult having interactions with children, the best policy is probably not to have direct communication like that and to go through the parents. Or if there is some type of direct communication that's necessary, almost every school has

an email system set up where you can email the child student through a school email email portal. That way everything's documented. There can never be any allegations that you've done anything inappropriate. it or if there are, then there's going to be a paper trail of it and you can document it. And if a best practice for teachers is probably not to have outside friendship relationships like that on social media. And to answer your question, some schools have that policy, some don't. Let me go to the criminal case. Look, he's innocent unless proven guilty. However, to me,

it seems the most significant piece of evidence of the text messages. Would you agree? I mean, what stands out to you where it may be a difficult case, suggest, hey, I didn't do any of this. I'm completely innocent. Is it the text messages, the volume, the content of the text messages that are going to be the most difficult to explain a way? Yeah. So in the first part of my career, I did a lot of criminal defense representation. So this would be a case that would come into me with the text messages. This is kind of a damage control case. With the text messages, unless you've got some way to show that the text messages were fraudulently made somehow,

which would be a very, very, very rare instance, although it does happen where people try to frame somebody for some inappropriate conduct. This is a damage control case when he is talking about things like, you know, masturbation and, you know, he loves her and he's looking forward to, you know, the next time they have some type of inappropriate contact.

If they have it nailed to his cell phone, it becomes a damage control case and not a who-done-it-or-did-it-happen case. And you're looking for, you know, usually in that type of case, you were probably not going to go to trial. You were looking to minimize the amount of jail exposure that the person has. You mean taking a deal?

Yes. And what would that look like here? So the one thing that I didn't see is I know that in this particular case, it looks like they seized one of the phones, and they did a forensic evaluation, I think, of the student's phone. They didn't report whether or not there were any type of, graphic images. And so if there are images of her, and those are of such a nature that they would be considered child pornography or CSAM, and he has those, then the stakes are dramatically higher.

There are some very, very stiff penalties. Sometimes there are minimum mandatory sentences, if it can be considered a production of child sexual assault material. And so even with the conduct that's alleged, I mean, there's a large exposure to jail time in this particular case. And I would, Just based on the cases that I've seen in the past, I would be surprised that if he were to take a deal or if he were to go to trial and be found guilty of this, that he would probably end up with a fairly significant jail prison sentence. What makes this also unique is the fact that the way this was all uncovered, assuming these allegations are true, are through diary entries, through journal entries, a parent looking at that. Now, one, I'm sure that's not the first time something like this has happened, whether you consider that or text messages. but I was wondering from an evidentiary point of view, can those be admissible? Do those present an interesting question in terms of what someone writes down in a journal or a diary?

Talk to me about that. Yeah, so there is, this does skirt a little bit close to a potential legal issue, which would be a, you know, a Fourth Amendment search and seizure issue. But because it's the parent who found the diary and not law enforcement, like say the law enforcement had gone into the young girl's room without a warrant and they had taken the journal. That would have been an illegal search and seizure. But because the parent has gone into the child's room, though it is pre-no, perhaps a breach of trust, there's no legal issue that would prevent that from being evidence.

Say, for instance, the student has a chain of heart and she doesn't want to prosecute the case for some reason because maybe she's in love with the teacher or something like that. Could they use that as a piece of evidence, perhaps, to prove the case? There's not a legal impediment to the journal entries really coming in front of a jury. What do you make of the timeline here, right? It seemed like it happened really quickly. The dire entries, this alleged assault happening, right? The sexual assault kit, the forensic interview, this happened really quickly, which makes me wonder,

that may, does that help with the prosecution's case? How does it factor into it? Yes, so honestly, the more quickly a case can get from the accusation to the court phase, the stronger it will be for the prosecution quite frequently. In a criminal case, the defense will want to delay the case because the older the case is, you know, general conventional wisdom is that the older cases, the weaker it usually gets it. A criminal case does not get any better for the prosecution with time as a general proposition. So the fact that they acted quickly, that they took affirmative steps to do the investigation,

do the forensic download of the of the student's phone and get it to court quickly, I think helps the prosecution. What are those forensic examinations, those forensic interviews like? I mean, I can imagine they're incredibly difficult even when you're, you know, have an adult, but when you have somebody like this, it's a very sensitive, very difficult process, but an important part of the investigation, right? Yeah, so interviewing children who are survivors of sexual abuse. There's very much of a protocol to it. And so there's usually a children's advocacy center or a children's home where there are trained professionals who know how to do what's called a forensic interview. And there's a protocol for it. And it's recorded and it's done in a very

formal manner that has a protocol. I think the primary goal in those forensic interviews is to get the information that's necessary to do the investigation to advance the criminal case. But secondarily and probably as important. I think the people who have been trained on how to do these interviews are trying not to re-traumatize the child and trying to be sensitive of the fact that the child has gone through a highly traumatic, very, very adverse incident and they don't want to cause any more harm to the child emotionally or physically. So there's definitely a protocol to it. There's a right way to do it and a wrong way to do it. And what you will see as law enforcement agents when they find out that there has been a trauma with children and sometimes even with adults, they will have somebody on that law

enforcement agency has been trained on how to do a forensic interview that is in tune with the needs of somebody who's a survivor and do it doing in the kindest way that can still get the information they need for the prosecution. I want to go back to something that you said. Does she have to testify for this case to move forward? Because I have to imagine it wouldn't be the first time that somebody maybe was able to come forward, tell their parents, tell school staff, tell law enforcement. But when it comes times to testify a trial, they maybe just, they can't do it. They just can't do it. What happens in those scenarios? Does the case fall apart? Can they just introduce pieces of the forensic examination? I don't know if that's recorded or not. How does it work? So with this question, you do get to a

core constitutional right. And everybody has the right to confront those witnesses against them. And so if I was the defense attorney representing the teacher in this particular case and the survivor child said they did not want to testify, I would file a motion to dismiss the case because that child is the one who's brought the allegations. That child is the main witness. The state would then have to make a hard choice or at least let the judge make a decision about whether the case can move forward without the child. Could it be that the diary of the child is enough? could they even get the diary into evidence without the child testifying about the diary? Could the text messages from the teacher be enough? For instance, going back to the, you know, if the teacher sends an appropriate text messages,

could the act of sending the text messages enough to be some type of criminal violation? If the teacher is in possession of photographs and they're of the child, then the child may not have to testify that the photographs are of her, if it's obvious that it's her. So maybe if it's just a photograph case, the child might not have to testify. So it very much depends on what charges the prosecutors bring and what ruling the judge might make

on a constitutional issue of being able to confront your accusers. Let's see how this progresses. Chris Klotz. Thank you so much for taking the time. Yeah, always happy to be here. Thanks for having me. And that's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar.

Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can also check us out on NBC's Peacock as well. If you want to follow me, ex-instagram, my News Nation show, Jesse Weber Live, Monday through Friday, 11 p.m. Eastern. See you next time, everybody.