Law&Crime Sidebar - Texas Mom Removed from School Committees After Her Escort Listings Were Uncovered

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

Officials in Godley, Texas say a woman was removed from several groups, including one that worked on sex education, after it was revealed she had previously been convicted for prostitution. Fellow parents say they also found escort listings tied back to Ashley Ketcherside. The Law&Crime Network’s Jesse Weber speaks with retired FBI agent Colin Schmitt about the red flags this case raises for the school district’s background check process.SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://www.forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Michael DeiningerScript Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest 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/lawandcrime/Twitter: 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.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A mom in Texas has been kicked off of several school district committees after her past and personal life are put in the spotlight. We explain what happened once fellow parents found out about her photos on escort websites and her prior arrest for prostitution. We sit down with retired FBI agent Colin Schmidt. for his take welcome to sidebar presented by law and crime i'm jesse weber so anybody who's been following sidebar knows that we for whatever reason are seeing this kind of uptick and arrests of female school instructors and counselors for allegedly engaging in a legal sexual conduct with minors

now this next story is not concern an arrest but oh boy so let's go to godly texas this is Ashley Peterside, a wife, a mother, think of mother, we believe, of three kids, and she was working with the godly independent school district to recommend the materials for the sex education curriculum, right? Seems all fine. Only problem is, it turns out, she is a convicted prostitute. Yes, convicted in 2012 and 2016, and when you do a further deep dive, she apparently was recently advertising herself online as an escort. So she has been, not surprisingly, removed from her various positions. Oh, yeah, there was more than one. We're going to get into that. I want to bring back into sidebar former FBI agent, Colin Schmidt. Colin, good to see you.

So the school board trustee, Kayla Lane, said, quote, we had no idea what was going on in her personal life. She was always very friendly, personable. The main question now is, how did this slip through the cracks? when they were doing, you would think a background check. Well, Colin, we have found out reporting indicates that the school district said that background checks are required. Quote, and this is again, this is actually a quote from Mary Lowe from the nonprofit families engaged for effective education. She said, obviously the district would not knowingly allow anyone to work in a staff

position or to volunteer with certain criminal convictions in their background. We would think that typically if you ran a background check, that those arrests would show up and they don't. Their misdemeanors in the state of Texas. I think there's something that the state needs to look at in regards to how they're screening people that participate in schools. What is going on? Well, I kind of shake my head was once, ironically, it's called Godly Texas. So what is the definition of the background? That's fair. So, you know, what is their background? I mean, I hear this word thrown around. I heard it thrown around in my first job, I was a deputy U.S. Marshal for three years.

And the first thing every adept at U.S. Marshall, or if you're a new FBI agent, you do backgrounds. Well, background to the FBI is a lot different than a background, apparently, to the school district. So what they likely did is something called a live scan, which is basically you go into a UPS store or whatever, and you go ahead and you put in your number, and you go ahead and they take your fingerprints off this machine called a live scan machine, and those fingerprints are sent up to the state of Texas, and then they run them through the criminal database, which is

connected to fingerprints to see if anything pops up. Well, the problem with that is, in this case, a misdemeanor. If she wasn't arrested, that means her fingerprints were never taken. So then she's not going to pop up in the live scan system or in their fingerprint system. The second part of this is apparently she got something expunged. Well, if it was expunged, it may not come up on the public record, so to speak, but if the government record, when I ran people, generally speaking, their arrests would come up, but the expungement of the case would not. show. So it's obvious their concept of a background is much different than what we have a concept of a background in terms of people who are around our children. Okay, so we want to thank

Morgan and Morgan for sponsoring this video. I think it's pretty clear from the stories that we cover that it's not always safe out there. When you're hurt, it can be pretty confusing. It can be scary. You don't know where to turn. Well, Morgan and Morgan is actually the largest injury law firm in America. And at a time when you already have so much to think about, they make it's super easy for you. They've completely modernized the process because you submit your claim, you sign contracts, you upload documents, and you talk to your whole legal team all on your phone. That's it. An attorney's going to review your case in just eight clicks. Also, they have 4,000 support staff that can help you through the process too, which is just amazing to think about.

And in terms of price, you only pay them if you win. There's no upfront fee. So if you're injured, you want to join the over 3 million people that call them every year, you can submit a claim at www. or by dialing pound law, that's pound 529 on your phone. My understanding is that Ketcherside was serving on this school health advisory council, which is actually required under Texas law. You have to have these councils and they advise on health education programs. And these members have to be appointed by the school board. But the district came out and told a local media outlet, Fox 4, that there was a mistake.

And she never went through the approval process? Yeah, so the other thing I'm going to touch on, well, two things. That's bureaucratic incompetence, number one. Number two, people forget that schools, churches, all these places, unfortunately, not only attract a lot of really good people who want to do good things for good people, but it also attracts some people with nefarious, you know, issues or needs or want to do bad things because to further their own personal desires and needs. So that's why a background is so important. That's why backgrounds are now in the boys. Scouts. Their backgrounds are now with the Catholic Church and true backgrounds, not just some live scan where it's just a bureaucratic box check. So in this case, obviously, they didn't go through, I don't think they really even had a process. And number two, they need to bring in professionals to do backgrounds on these people because the life scan is not enough. They just need to go

out and ask a few questions. Go around, I'm sure if they went and walked down and to her house and knocked on her door and just did a good old interview, this multiple red flags would have popped up and those would have been leads that they could follow up on. Let me touch upon this a little bit more that you might provide some perspective on. So reporting indicates that she was selected by Superintendent Rich Deere to the Long Range Facility Planning Committee. She was a volunteer on the Family and Community Engagement Committee, a parent-teacher organization, and godly athletic Ooster Club, and she led a cheerleading group. So it's not like she was part of one organization. It seems to me that whatever fault there was, it lies with many people here, no?

Absolutely. And the magic word is intent that why did they intend to hire this person? By the way, just to let everybody know a little bit more, her husband, Michael Catcherside, he serves on the school volunteer group athletic booster club and watchdogs. I do want to talk to you about how they found out, right? How did they find out? So apparently, Catcher's side had claimed that she owned all these businesses and parents were like, hmm, that doesn't sound 100% right. So they look into her and they do a LexisNexis public records search and it shows her email matches the email from an escort site for the name Lola Brie,

all of these different escort sites. And Lola Brie, their images are quite graphic and they're found on these publicly available websites. Again, just seems to me the parents were able to do the due diligence here. It seemed pretty easy to find out. Absolutely. So I'm sure I haven't done it, but maybe even a couple of Googles would have popped this person up or a Google facial search, put her picture out, and then it would have popped up. Just basic background 101, and obviously they never did it.

And good on these parents and these advocates for kids who did the right thing and said, wait a second. This doesn't make sense. Let's do it. And they only asked one question. Okay, do these businesses make any sense? And all of a sudden, the whole thing fell apart. It's amazing if you ask the right question, you will get answers that will blow your mind. Now, before we get into the criminal, potential criminal aspect of this, I want to go into kind of the moral aspect and legal aspects. So obviously, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if parents somehow take legal action against the school district here in regards. But somebody might be listening to this and goes, and might say, I don't get what the big deal is, right? So she's not a violent criminal.

She's not accused of any, you know, inappropriate conduct with the students, like we've covered on so many different sidebars. I think the thing to note is, in Texas, escort sites are actually legal. You can charge people money for your time and your companionship and your friendship. It's when you pay for sex that it becomes illegal. So walk us through why this is such a big deal. You know, is this a big problem that she was, she had this past and was serving in this capacity? Well, it comes down to the parents and what they want.

I'm a parent of four children in a school district. I keep a close eye. Of course, I'm as a retired FBI agent on who comes around my kids. And if I have any suspicions, I'm going to follow up on it. And I'm going to ask those tough questions to the superintendent and to my school board, whether they like it or not. So it comes down to what are the parents? parents want? Do they want a school district that has people like this or not? We're seeing this

only fans nonsense all over the place, and that's really demonstrating these people who are very self-absorbed, and we go in a deeper conversation about society as a whole and the narcissism, but it really comes down to me as a parent, I do not want this person around my children. This is not something that I want my children to be exposed to. I get that choice as a parent. All these parents and and if anybody any of those school board members come out and start popping off about well what's the big deal the parents need to get get together and get rid of that school board member i will say though um i think at the very least either she wasn't honest about her past or the questions weren't asked but i think it would have been a

different situation if she came clean about it the school board said look you know her credentials are great other than this we really think she'd be good and they kind of put it to a vote for the parents and inform the parents about what her past was and they had the opportunity to weigh in before she was hired. That might have been different. I do want to ask you about potential criminal liability. Again, this is from the godly police department. They told Fox 4 that, quote, they are generally aware of the allegations. However, there was no official criminal investigation at this time based on the allegations alone. I'm not surprised by this. I don't sense there was anything illegal here? What do you think? Well, the only thing right now that's illegal is it's the document

that she signed as a part of her employment and if it was signed under the penalty of perjury. In that case, depending on what it is in the state of Texas, most likely a misdemeanor, and there's your criminal conduct right there. But otherwise, you're spot on. It doesn't appear there's any criminal culpability here. It just looks really, really bad. It does. It does. And, you know, unfortunately, we're covering all these stories about problems in schools recently. I really just think about the kids. I think about the kids who are exposed to a lot of this and the parents who were kind of finding out about it. But thankfully, this story, you know, is not kind of the ones we've been covering where we're hearing about abuse.

But it's just bad judgment and seemingly not doing your proper homework. Colin Schmidt, thank you so much. Appreciate it, sir. Thank you. Appreciate it. Bye-bye. All right, everybody. That is all we have for you right now.

here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. As always, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. Speak to you next time. Bye.