Original story posted at 7:12 a.m. Friday; Updated at 12:12 p.m. Saturday.
BY DAVE PRICE
Daily Post Editor
The Palo Alto school board has agreed to pay $3.25 million to Fletcher Middle School teacher Peter Colombo, who sued saying he was the victim of retaliation and civil rights violations after he had been falsely accused of rape, according to the website of the teacher’s attorney.
The school board approved the settlement in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday, court documents indicate. The Post heard about the settlement on Friday and asked the district for a copy of the settlement agreement. Settlement agreements are considered a public record under California law. However, the district didn’t provide the agreement on Friday. On Saturday, however, the Post checked the website of Colombo’s attorney, Evan C. Nelson of Walnut Creek, and the settlement had been added to the page where he lists cases he won.
Nelson’s website says the following:
Peter Colombo v. Palo Alto Unified School District – Obtained a $3.25 million settlement from the client’s California public school district employer for retaliation/civil rights violations relating to their mistreatment of the client, a tenured PE teacher with seniority (27 years of service at the district) who had been falsely accused of a sexual assault allegedly occurring more than 20 years previous. After the unsubstantiated criminal charges were dropped, assisted the client to renew his teaching credential by representing him through a ‘formal review’ by the California Commission for Teacher Credentialing (CTC). Then also represented him during the school district’s subsequent ‘investigation’ and prosecuted his civil claims all the way through trial preparation before the matter settled on the eve of trial.
The case began on Jan. 28, 2022 when the school district got an email alleging Colombo had raped a middle school student in the 2001-02 school year, according to a narrative by Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins. The school district reported the email to police and put Colombo on paid administrative leave.
On June 15, 2022, Palo Alto police arrested Colombo and the District Attorney’s Office charged him with felony aggravated sexual assault of a child. Then the school district put Colombo on unpaid leave and the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing suspended Colombo’s teaching credentials, preventing him from getting another job in the profession.
A year later, in June 2023, the DA dismissed the case against Colombo. The district returned Colombo to paid administrative leave, pending an outside investigation by a law firm hired by the district. For the 2024-25 school year, the district put Colombo in a special assignment position when he would run committee meetings or plan teacher training sessions, but he wasn’t in contact with students.
In February 2024, Colombo sued the school district (link to Second Amended Complaint).
In Colombo’s complaint, he stated that the female PE teachers in charge of the girls’ PE locker room at Jordan (now Greene Middle School) during the 2001-2002 timeframe of the allegation say the accuser’s report is impossible.
Moreover, the accuser claimed she was raped by Colombo at Jordan Middle School, but Colombo was at Terman (now Fletcher) Middle School at that time, the complaint said.
The complaint said the accuser’s report card shows she was taught PE by another male teacher at the time of the alleged rape, but the card was deleted from the district’s computer files.
Colombo claims the district didn’t investigate him in compliance with federal law and board policies because they knew such an investigation would have exonerated him.
“This tainted process was purposely designed to deny plaintiff of due process and his presumed innocence because he is a male accused by a female,” the complaint said.
His complaint contends the district attempted to replace him, a white male, with a new teacher that would advance the district’s “Equity Plan.” Presumably, more information about the Equity Plan would have emerged had the case gone to trial.
The complaint points out that the accusation against Colombo came during the height of the #MeToo movement. The suit says a number of women were attempting to accelerate the district’s Equity Plan by targeting white male teachers to coerce them into early retirement. Colombo, in his complaint, says these women include:
• Stanford Law Professor Michele Dauber, whose husband is Ken Dauber, who was the school board president at the time Colombo faced the rape allegations;
• Shae Clausen (aka Shae Franco-Clausen), the spouse of Palo Alto police Detective Yolanda Franco-Clausen, who was assigned to investigate the rape claim against Colombo;
• Jennifer DiBrienza, a school board member at the time and a Democratic Party Delegate for California. The complaint said DiBrienza sponsored and/or submitted resolutions relating to DEI to the local Democratic Committee and “helped develop, implement and accelerate Defendant District’s Equity Plan including by serving on its Equity Plan Committee.”
Colombo said in the complaint that Dauber posted comments about him on social media, such as, “I was really disturbed by the number of people claiming to be Palo Altans defending this guy. … There is a segment of this community that believes rape myths and blames victims. Mostly affluent, mostly older, mostly lawyers, mostly Stanford affiliated. Mostly wrong. Mostly jerks.”
The complaint states that Colombo was discriminated against because of his gender and that his teaching career was destroyed by the false allegations. He said the district discriminated against him because he had been arrested, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t been convicted. Later, the DA dropped charges.
In May 2024, the school district’s investigation concluded and didn’t substantiate the allegations made against Colombo.
In August 2025, the district returned Colombo to a teaching position that put him in contact with students. Parents held a protest outside of Fletcher Middle School.
On Jan. 26, 2026, a trial was scheduled in Colombo’s suit against the district. But it was canceled due to settlement talks. On Tuesday, the school board approved a settlement in a closed session, and the lawyers informed the judge of the approval on Wednesday.
In addition to the Palo Alto Unified School District, the other defendants in the suit were Superintendent Don Austin, HR director Lisa Hickey, and deputy superintendent and chief of staff Trent Bahadursingh.
The settlement agreement itself is a public record once it is approved by both sides, so make a request under CPRA. (If there hadn’t been a lawsuit, you might not even know the board made an agreement.)
The Brown Act says the board shall report the vote. So ask the board president, and if you don’t get an answer by the next meeting, ask again then.
Got a feeling the Post knows how to do this.
Dave Price, knowing him and reading his great work, already is on it and if PAUSD paid this guy anything near 7 figures then we know for sure a lot of questions to be asked and not a good look for Austin.
If it is in the 7 figure area then I might have to start thinking this guy actually might have been dealing with a great injustice, a tragic situation for Colombo and his family.
Most of all, I’m looking forward to Dave doing a deep dive onn what actually went down like he did with the water department story.
Hmmm. I understand why the parents protested. My heart goes out to the young lady.
Mine too. She must be feeling sick to her stomach right now.
Only if she has a conscience and feels guilty about going along with false allegations. This was a horrible attack of blatantly false allegations and cover-up of the evidence that showed the allegations were false by the school district.
Did you fail to comprehend that HE DIDN’T EVEN TEACH AT THE SCHOOL SHE SAID IT HAPPEN AT?
That’s not true. He taught at both schools during the year she said it happened. The records indicated he taught 6th grade PE at Terman and 7th grade PE at Jordan during the same year in question. So, yes, the student and Colombo attended the same school for part of the school day, and so it’s not “impossible” for the incident to have occurred as she said it did. This is an inconvenient fact left out of Colombo’s complaint by his lawyers.
What makes me wonder is if this guy got money, and especially a substantial sum, then something really wrong happened here. I have lived in this area for 40 years and have always seen a teacher accused of inappropriate behavior get maybe a year’s salary and then they are gone. I for sure have never seen a teacher accused of something like this ever go back to the classroom let alone get a legal settlement of any kind from the district.
This story should be very interesting.
When a superintendent goes after a teacher for political reasons as opposed to the facts, then you get what we have here.
Mr. Austin wanted to present himself as a sheriff of sorts, looking out for the “safety” of students. Problem is he forgot something known as due process, which is not uncommon for him. Instead of riding off into the sunset, he will most likely be riding off to another school district if another one will have him.
Well said.
I’m a close friend of Pete’s and no amount of money from the district and Palo Alto Taxpayers, is going to make up for what was done to him. As his criminal lawyer told him, when he visited him in solitary confinement before I showed up to visit him at Elmwood Jail in protective custody back in June of 2022: The lawyer said” “In all his years of practicing law he had never seen such an injustice and was appalled he was even charged.”
I know the amount and lets just say Colombo and his wife, with his pension and settlement combined, will never have to worry about money again and will live comfortably, and he deserves every cent of it. Maybe now people in Palo Alto will wake up and start asking some tough questions about what is really going on at 25 Churchill. I can guarantee when the amount becomes public, and it will, people will be rightfully angry!
The amount will be known as soon as the check dries and clears the bank. The saddest thing is that this situation, as Mr. Allendorf pointed out, was political. A band wagon mentality following the “Me Too” movement. If any reporter had attended the pre-trial against Mr. Colombo, they would have viewed something completely different than what our District was sharing. This case should have gone to trial to expose the truth about our guiding leaders taking our tax dollars and now asking for more. Imagine what our insurance is going to cost the District now! Hopefully, someone will write a book or produce a movie about what happens when an innocent man falsely accused and investigated by incompetence leads too.
It was a witch hunt based before the facts and clearly the investigation was lead by emotions… what a shocker.
Hal, did you happen to read the story? The amount is given in the story, $3.25 million.
I posted before article was updated. Did you read that?
Guess I know how they’ll spend the Parcel Tax!
This comment is the winner of all the comments
Should have been fired a long time ago for all of the inappropriate behavior of his past. Now he’s getting rich off our dumb superintendent Don Austin. This district is beyond negligent with their spending for lawsuits and legal bills. It’s time we got rid of Donny boy.
Another making to an excellent Grisham novel.
I’ve known Pete for years. Can he be gruff? Yes. Can he be old school? Yes. Would he ever harm, let alone SA a child? No. And, with the complete lack of evidence…for the PAUSD, PA Police, and the DA to ruin a man’s life is tragic.
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Another example of Don Austin’s total incompetence. Austen has made one incompetent mistake after another from day one. Instead of trying to destroy a career of a good coach and burning millions of dollars of tax payer money that could be used for teachers pay and enhanced curriculum and better facilities, it gets spent cleaning up after his mistakes. Good for Pete for fighting this and winning. Let him coach again.
This massive payout was both wholly warranted and also completely avoidable.
Brent Kline and Don Austin had countless opportunities to do the right thing but chose irresponsibility, self-aggrandizement, pettiness and ego instead. And the School Board sat by and let this happen.
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The $3.25 million will come out of the same people who were harmed by their aggressive incompetence and potential malice: the teachers, students, and families. In the private sector, these two highest-ranking administrators would have been let go years ago.
I also hope that Pete’s lawyer sued the PA Weekly/ PA Online as well. That local “nonprofit journalism” ran the most egregiously unethical cover image and story with their sensationalized, slanderous unrepentantly un-researched article accusing Pete of the worst kinds of evil behavior. [Portion removed — Terms of Use violation] … It was hard to imagine a more aggressive, tenacious, and obdurate commitment to slander an obviously innocent person.
Yet PAUSD’s top brass have learned nothing from their extremely expensive errors. [Portion removed — Terms of Use violation] Austin and Kline appear belligerently dedicated to prioritizing their fragile egos over the well being of the students, teachers, staff, and families, who are deprived a great coach due to their pettiness and unprofessionalism.
How many more costly incidents like this does the Palo Alto community have to fund before the School Board does its job and terminates this Superintendent who started out weak with his covid irrationality, and went downhill from there?
A correction to Eisenberg’s post — this investigation began with an *email* from the alleged victim, not a *letter*. She was identified and interviewed before the investigation began. Unfortunately, the way Eisenberg wrote her comment, it leaves the impression that Pete was investigated because of an anonymous allegation. I agree that Pete was railroaded by the district but it doesn’t help anyone’s cause to misstate facts.
It was a telephone interview. Remember COVID ? Anyway, the detective, in my opinion, like so many others in the community, were already in the “he must be guilty” mind frame. That would of come out probably at trial but we will never know.. The sad truth is all the “facts” that the accusers husband shared were based on stories and the detective never fact checked the most important ones. The same goes with the District Attorney and school district. Maybe someone will decide it is worth getting the court documents, police files, and actual records and writing a real story of the perfect target.
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Pete was investigated because of an anonymous allegation. It is true. I am his friend. If you are certain, use your name.
Rebecca is telling a half truth. The initial email, which was written by the accuser’s husband, didn’t state her name. But early on, the accuser’s identity became known. In the court filings, she is identified by two initials. If you want proof that her identity was known to the parties in the lawsuit, look at the “NOTICE OF MOTION AND MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT,” filed by Pete’s attorney on 6/04/24. Turn to page 7, line 2, and you’ll see the first of many references to the accuser. The motion was filed just four months after the lawsuit began. So they had the accuser’s identity four months after litigation commenced, and probably earlier.
Rebecca, just because you say something is true, doesn’t make it so. I agree that Pete was railroaded. But it’s not necessary to tell half truths in order to make that point.
Is this how you conduct yourself on the Valley Water board?
You know she’s gotten into big trouble on the Water Board, right?
I might be mistaken but I believe you are referring to Trent Bahadursingh not Trent Kline. Trent B, by the way has never taught in a k-12 setting and is only credentialed to teach adult education. He is the “Chief of Staff” and makes decisions based on no base as he never really taught children.
Kline is principal of Paly.
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Glad Mr. Colombo was able to get the settlement and vindicate himself despite getting smeared by the district. Was a student at Jordan (Greene) during the 2006-2010 period (Hello Mr. Roach and Mr. Allendorf!) and could not imagine Mr. Colombo doing anything of the sort.
Regarding the Palo Alto Online comment – when the news first broke out, it did sound very biased and I was talking to former classmates about it.
How in the world does one get prosecuted via anonymous email? The person who made the false claim should face the full penalty of civil law. Even exonerated, the teacher’s career is badly damaged. When people do this, it makes a mockery of REAL SA victims. Shame on the person who made the false accusation, and shame on PAUSD for believing it without proof.
What happens to the accuser and parents of the accuser who made the false accusation?
It seems they — along with Austen, PAUSD, Embarcadero Media — bear responsibility and should pay the price for ruining someone’s life on such flimsy “evidence” so easily shown to be wrong.
The accusation was made 20 years later. At that point the accuser must’ve been around 30 years of age. Why should her parents bear responsibility?
I wonder more about the DA hierarchy. Do they take a lot of pride in their case/this story or was it just a usual day at the office for them?
James Gibbons-Shapiro in the DA’s office has a solid reputation and my experience of him was impressive. I haven’t followed this case closely so I don’t know if the DA’s office blew it, but I’ve seen Gibbons-Shapiro deal very seriously and effectively with more minor sex crimes.
Two of our three kids had Colombo as a coach, but this isn’t about them. A settlement has been reached, and you have to accept settlements whether or not you agree. The community is divided, and taxpayers will pay. My only concern is the young lady. Somebody raped her, and rape will always be a he said/she said. And you wonder why female and male victims don’t come forward. It’s getting better, but it will never be where it should be. You have to wonder if taking it to your grave is the safer option. Nobody wants to be victimized twice.
Glad to see the support for Coach Colombo. He’s not perfect, but he is a good man who got a raw deal. Trust me, he is not the only teacher to be on the receiving end of Austin’s dirty tricks, but he had the wherewithal to seek justice and see it through. 25 Churchill thought he would cave emotionally and financially, but he proved them wrong.
Don’t believe Austin when he runs his mouth about social-emotional wellness. Look at his actions instead.
Time to turn the page and seek new leadership.
I say keep Austin on so he does not walk with the contractural cash he would receive. That said, put him in charge of teaching PE at one of the the middle schools. That is all he ever did as a teacher for less time than it would take to become a tenured teacher in Palo Alto. I’m sure the staff would greet him with the same affection he has given to staff. Finding a replacement should not be hard. There is competence within the local ranks. Send Trent Bajadursingh packing. The community owes him nothing and hopefully there is no silly contractural monetary terms involved.
Part of the settlement should be the firing of all of those “officials” who were involved in the false prosecution and they need to be banned from ever working in any school or part of any government agency, school board, etc.
If Colombo is not-guilty of the charges he deserves even more compensation. I’m assuming he has to pay his lawyer out of the settlement. Somebody tried to wreck his career and his life. And there goes Ms. Dauber again, piling on.
Ah yes, the gold standard of justice: ignore timelines, ignore locations, ignore witnesses, ignore your own investigation — then quietly cut a $3.25 million check right before trial and call it “due process.”
Nothing screams “we were right” like paying millions to keep testimony off the record.
Facts optional. Optics mandatory. Career destroyed.
Mission accomplished. Bravo Zulu to the “brave” women involved leading this clown show.
Confirmation bias + institutional fear + performative virtue/ running off emotions instead of facts = one guy cashing in.
Lynch mob at work
Innocent before proven guilty + due process + a day in court
Anyone can write any emai accusing anyone of rape rape rape
Lynch – mob at work
$ 3 million is peanuts is for a innocent innocent innocent – man
You do realize that giving a great speech v/s raping a middle schooler can be two completely different events done by the same person? One doesn’t have to impact the other. Just because he gave a great speech doesn’t make him innocent. Human psychology discusses this at length. Perhaps educate yourself.
What happened to the victim is tragic, but so is going after the wrong person especially when there was literally no evidence to implicate Mr. Colombo. He was just an easy target of political forces that preach justice but don’t practice justice.
Yes, he has been compensated for his suffering, but the fact remains that there are two victims here. The young woman and Mr. Colombo.
Hopefully everyone involved will learn from this, and those responsible for the miscarriage of justice held accountable.
Dauber and her ilk should be arrested. This is like the E Jean Carroll case and this stuff is rampant in our country. Its disingenuous lawfare in service of fanatical DEI ideology. This must be purged from our justice system.
Just because you received a settlement in your favor doesn’t mean you’re “innocent.” You’re only innocent if you didn’t do it. Deep pockets settle all the time. It’s easier to settle. And guilty people are found “not guilty” in a court of law and innocent people go to prison. Our system does their best and I’ll hold on to my constitutionally protected opinion. It doesn’t make any sense to say oh, by the way I was raped by a teacher 20 years ago, and to choose a teacher out of the blue. Who does that?
Here, here! My thoughts exactly. She wasn’t seeking money either and had nothing to gain but much to lose by notifying the school. Plus, school districts and government employers generally are more likely to settle with large payouts when someone else – the taxpayer – is footing the bill.
It might have been better if this case was taken to court and the payout he received was more like $10 million. The comments on this article show that people are too ready to falsely accuse someone who did nothing at all let alone nothing wrong. Maybe I’ll get 10 million in court when accused like that
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Alvin, if that is your real name, I’d bet my favorite fishing rod that you were not at the pre trial. You failed to mention that the Judge at pre trial said “I’ve seen much stronger cases” In my opinion, so only opinion, Peter Colombo was selected as the target for a future lawsuit. Apparently filed against district on the grounds of unsafe environment or something of that wording. Hopefully someone will dig up that to verify that an accusation needed to be submitted beforehand. We have all heard the ads on radio and TV asking if you were sexually abused. There is a connection. Hopefully it will come to light as the real truths and past pertinent history is exposed.
If you look at the records from the pre-trial, the judge cleared this to go to trial – this means the judge himself felt there was enough merit in the accusation to move forward to trial. It was the DA that ultimately dropped the charges for lack of sufficient evidence, which is not uncommon in old cases with no physical evidence.
Also, please inform yourself on the psychology behind childhood sexual abuse. It is very common for victims of childhood rape to have fragmented memories of the event, dissociation, and even full blown memory loss. The victim was always consistent in her statement that Colombo did this. She NEVER stated that she did not know who did it.
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Maybe she didn’t see who it was because the guy raped her from behind and it was really someone else.
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It seems the district could have avoided this settlement if they had fairly investigated the allegations against Pete. One big red flag they missed is that the accuser said she couldn’t remember his face. I realize it was 20 years before she spoke up, but if she can’t remember something like that, I don’t think you’ve got a case.
I was at last Tuesday’s school board meeting, and I didn’t hear a thing about the Colombo settlement. It also wasn’t on their agenda. I looked up the Brown Act and it says they’re supposed to announce the decisions they make behind closed doors. But I heard nothing about Colombo. Maybe there’s some loophole I missed, but I think the board should have told everybody that they settled this suit with 3.25 million of your dollars.
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Accusers pursue allegations like this with the hope of getting a fat check. Think about E. Jean Carroll, Tawana Brawley or the accuser in the Duke lacrosse players case. But this case has unexpectedly boomeranged and Colombo is the one getting the fat check. And it looks like he could go after others who falsely accused him, like Michele Dauber, Embarcadero Media and the Palo Alto Police Department.
Lot of posts being removed. Are we now in the area of avoiding “yellow journalism” or just watching out for the meal ticket?
[Hal, several comments were posted by the same person using different names to create a sock puppet effect. It’s a violation of our Terms of Use, so they have been removed.]
Hal makes accusations before knowing the facts. Isn’t that what he is accusing PAUSD of?
I asked and an answer was shared. Read carefully what I said and asked. I think you might have missed the part where one uses question marks to ask questions?
One thing that has not been mentioned. Take note Alvin. The PAUSD website once bragged about its state of the art student record keeping and how they have student records dating back to the early 1900’s. However, 25 Churchill claimed the middle school records of the woman that accused Mr.Colombo “disappeared”. They produced 5th grade records but could not produce middle school records. How is that possible?
Those records most likely would have shown that Mr. Colombo was not the accuser’s teacher, and that he wasn’t on campus when she had PE class.
Is the disappearance of those records sheer coincidence? You decide.
In reality, only the rapist and God know the truth. None of us were there, we’re all entitled to our opinion, the community is sharply divided, and comments are “at the sole discretion” of the owner of the publication.
I know Mr. Columbo and he would never injure his students. In my opinion, they should have paid much more. Now let’s see if the accuser will face criminal charges for posting a false claim…
I’m uncomfortable with the line in this article describing the allegations as “unsubstantiated and false.” Those aren’t interchangeable terms. An allegation being unsubstantiated means it didn’t meet the necessary threshold of evidence to support termination, not that the allegation of rape was made up or disproven.
This settlement does not imply that the victim was lying. It addressed unpaid leave, harm to reputation and unfair reassignment after the investigation. The framing of this article draws a conclusion the record just does’t support.
You never met Pete. He is about as violent as an Easter bunny fluffy eared rabbit. He is not a groomer and certainly not a rapist. Check the facts! The people who work with kids are never rapists…They groom. Not violent rapes. It was a feces or stool show from the beginning. Something that I might suggest, in my opinion only, as pigs are, Don and Trent are comfortable with.
Those who should face criminal charges won’t. Apparently it is not a crime to run with an unsubstantiated case for political purposes, especially if you have power and influence. Powerful folks with an ax to grind saw Mr. Colombo as an easy target and a sacrificial lamb: low hanging PE teacher fruit with neither the resources, time, energy, or character to combat a wealthy school district shielded by insurers, an army of lawyers, and sovereign immunity. Not to mention a former board president and his activist law professor wife. One with a record of removing a respected judge from the bench.
The good news is that the “little guy” still stands a chance. Mr. Colombo’s true grit has proven as much. You may detest the man for your own reasons, but he has done all of us “average folks” a solid favor in the long run.
This guy’s lawyer should get in touch with Mike Molieri “Coach Mo” who was a longtime special education teacher and former boys’ varsity basketball coach at Menlo-Atherton High School. He has been on paid administrative leave since August 2024 pending an investigation. He filed a lawsuit against the Sequoia Union High School District alleging retaliation and discrimination after being accused of violating student confidentiality.
It seems like Sequoia Union HSD is doing the same thing that Palo Alto USD was doing to this guy.
the other defendants in the suit were Superintendent Don Austin, HR director Lisa Hickey-interesting
It’s not relevant that Austin and Hickey were co-defendants because they won’t be paying the $3.25 million out of their own pockets — they’re forcing us to pay! If they had been on the hook, they wouldn’t have behaved so recklessly.
BTW–PAUSD is such a bad actor it can’t even get normal liability insurance. Instead, it has to put money into a self-insurance pool with other impossible-to-insure school districts.
What is the community looking for? Think this out? Can’t teach because I’m bad at it or not happy. Oh, I can continue my education and “manage” those who do a better job at what I can’t do. Start thinking hard about who you really want to make the decisions. Do the research, we have been had by the boards secret agendas and superintendants money waste.