DALLAS — Editor's note: Since this story was published, Caston and three others were indicted on charges related to child sex trafficking.
Gershon Caston has been in the Dallas County jail since July. If you ask him, he’ll tell you he has “no idea” why.
“I haven’t had that revealed to me just yet,” Caston said. “As far as I know, I was just living my life one day and the police came and got me.”
Caston agreed to do an interview in jail, following a request from WFAA.
“I guess it’s just a chance to speak or, like, proclaim my innocence,” said Caston.
Caston was arrested and booked into the jail in the early hours of July 20. According to an arrest affidavit, he is accused of having sex multiple times with an 11-year-old girl he’d met at a gas station earlier that month and then directing her to perform sex acts for money.
Caston was one of four people arrested in this case over the summer.
He was charged with aggravated sexual assault of a child, sex trafficking a child and compelling prostitution from someone under 18.
According to the arrest affidavit, the girl said she had already been trafficked by one man and sexually assaulted by multiple others before meeting Caston on July 4.
The girl told police she initially told Caston she was 21, and that he bought her food and clothes. However, during an argument, she said she later told Caston her age and that she wanted to go home.
According to the affidavit, she said Caston replied, “I really don’t care.”
She also told police that Caston put a gun in her lap, gave her marijuana and alcohol and told her that he taught middle school and high school.
Caston denies involvement with the alleged victim.
“I don’t know any minors,” Caston told WFAA.
He did not deny that he’s a teacher.
Caston’s arrest came just more than three weeks before he was supposed to start teaching and coaching at Red Oak Middle School. The district terminated his employment shortly after he was arrested.
WFAA confirmed, through an open records request, that Caston was previously employed by seven school systems in North Texas:
- 2023 Duncanville ISD
- 2021, 2022 Irving ISD
- 2020 Lancaster ISD
- 2019 International Leadership of Texas
- 2016 DeSoto ISD
- 2015 Garland ISD
- 2014 Dallas ISD
WFAA’s Investigates team also submitted open records requests to each of the districts, requesting any documents concerning investigations into Caston’s conduct and any letters concerning paid or unpaid administrative leave.
Lancaster ISD, International Leadership of Texas, Desoto ISD and Garland ISD all said they did not have any reports of misconduct investigations for Caston.
Dallas and Irving ISDs Investigation
Dallas ISD and Irving ISD both sent letters to the Texas Attorney General’s Office asking whether or not they have they release their investigation documents to WFAA. It’s unclear why the districts investigated Caston, but the districts’ respective letters indicate that there were investigations into his conduct.
Dallas ISD’s letter stated that the documents in question include “statements of reported conduct” by Caston and mentioned that Caston had the appropriate certificate “at the time of the evaluation at issue”.
Irving ISD stated that Caston “held appropriate certifications at the time of the investigation and evaluation” and described the material it’s withholding as “investigation documents and evaluations.”
The Texas AG’s Office supported Dallas ISD’s withholding of documents and ruled that Caston’s evaluations and personnel files were confidential.
WFAA is still waiting for a ruling on Irving ISD’s documents.
Duncanville ISD Investigation
Duncanville ISD, where Caston most recently worked before applying to work in Red Oak, confirmed that Caston was on administrative leave when he resigned in spring 2023.
He’d been employed with the district as a special education teacher and an assistant girls basketball coach at Duncanville High School for the 2022-2023 school year.
According to district records, in early January 2023, a parent of one of the student athletes brought concerns about Caston to the school’s interim athletics director. During the district’s investigation, several female student basketball players wrote statements claiming that Caston used profanity and derogatory language when speaking with them.
One student wrote, “Coach Caston called us B words, he cussed us out, he called my teammate trash and sloppy. He also called me fat."
Another student wrote, “Coach Caston has said a lot of demeaning things.” Her statement describing interactions with Caston goes on to say, “[redacted student name] she is a h*e and always around me the boys, me; I am a h*e, I am sensitive, I fake all of my injuries, my dad isn’t stiff."
Multiple students wrote that Caston referred to a student as “emo” and joked about her “slitting her wrists." Many students also wrote that Caston would come into the locker room unannounced.
One student wrote, “It came to a point where whenever the locker room doors opened everyone would just stop what they’re doing and turn away from the door."
Despite denying all of the allegations in a written response, which was included in the report, the district placed him on paid leave. The report showed that during his leave, someone reported to the interim athletics director that Caston had an “extreme amount of clothes and other personal items” in his office.
Caston wrote that he kept clothing, 20 pairs of shoes, undergarments and toiletries in his office to better keep up with the staff wardrobe requirements because he lived too far from the campus to go home and change if he needed to.
The district’s human resources department found that the claims of Caston walking into the locker room at inappropriate times were “unfounded”, but the department found “consistency in the student statements regarding the use of profanity and/or derogatory language."
The department also noted that his office was in the same hallway as the girls’ locker room and it contained an excessive amount of clothing.
The department’s recommendation was that for the district to move to terminate Caston if he did not resign by March 31. The recommendations stated that, “…it is believed that he has lost credibility as an effective staff member and should not have the opportunity to interact with our students."
In a letter dated for March 31, Caston resigned from Duncanville ISD.
When asked about his forced resignation from Duncanville, Caston said he was asked to resign because of a highly publicized incident involving the school’s basketball coaching staff being reprimanded for violating UIL rules.
“The accusations and stuff, or whatever, those weren’t… those were like… I was part of a staff where there was some UIL regulations that were not upheld. So, whatever was going on with that… that was, like, with the rules or something,” said Caston.
Caston denied that he left the district because of his conduct. However, in a statement, Duncanville ISD said “Caston’s employment ended after the District learned that he used profanity in his communications with students."
The allegations made against Caston while he was at Duncanville aren’t sexual. However, Terri Miller, president of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation (S.E.S.A.M.E) read the statements written by the Duncanville student athletes and said they are a red flag.
“I find the allegations extremely alarming," said Miller.
Miller has worked with the organization for nearly 30 years and, additionally, has a decades of experience in advocating for sex trafficking victims.
“The experience that his athletes had with him, the brutality and the kind of language that they are accusing him of using and the kind of names and degrading of little girls is very common in the trafficking world. It’s called the beat down,” said Miller.
Miller said she believes that if Caston’s conduct was severe enough for the district to force him to resign, the district should have had to report to the Texas Education Agency.
“Transparency is the key to ensuring that children are not endangered, and that it is what every school district should be doing beyond fingerprint background checks,” Miller said. “Fingerprint background checks are a false sense of security because 95% of these types of cases are handled in house as the Duncanville school district did. They did not report it up the chain of command to the TEA.”
In response to a public records request, the TEA confirmed that the only time the agency ever opened an investigation and flagged his certification was in July. The agency confirmed it opened an investigation into Caston six days after he was arrested and placed a notification on his certification indicating that he is being investigated.
“This person had no business ever in a school and should have been terminated and had a blight on his record so that he could never get hired in another school or working with children again,” said Miller.
However, the specific allegations made against Caston in Duncanville did not meet the threshold of offenses that superintendents are required to report to the TEA, according to the agency’s website.
This means that despite being forced from Duncanville ISD because of misconduct, nothing about Caston’s teaching certification indicated that he had been in trouble.
Reference Checks from Duncanville
According to records obtained from Red Oak ISD, where he applied to work after Duncanville, Caston stated that he left Duncanville ISD because his position was terminated. He also wrote “No” when asked if he had failed to be rehired, been forced to resign or resigned to avoid termination.
Red Oak’s records also show that a Red Oak Middle School administrator conducted reference checks with an assistant principal who was Caston’s supervisor at Duncanville High School and a staff member who worked in Caston’s department who held a leadership position at the school.
According to Red Oak’s records, both of those people stated that they would hire Caston again. The assistant principal was quoted saying that Caston was “really good with students” and a “good person."
In a statement, Duncanville ISD stated that “…At no time did the District receive any formal inquiries from Caston’s subsequent employer or provide any reference for him to that employer. The District is not aware of any personal references that any Duncanville ISD employees have give for Caston."
District officials did not want to do an interview and did not respond to a follow-up email from WFAA confirming who gave references to Red Oak ISD.
Red Oak ISD also did not want to do an interview but confirmed the district was never informed that Caston was investigated and forced to resign from Duncanville ISD.
What’s Next
Caston is being held at the Dallas County jail on a $450,000 bond.
Caston’s criminal case has not been heard by a grand jury yet, so he is still waiting to find out if he will be criminally prosecuted. If a grand jury chooses to indict him on any of the charges, his case will move toward trial. However, if a grand jury believes no crime occurred and votes not to indict him, the charges against him will be dropped.
His case is not on the November or December Dallas County grand jury schedule.
If Caston is convicted of the crimes he is accused of, Miller said, it will be crucial to walk back through his teaching history.
“You don’t just suddenly become a trafficker,” Miller said. “You know, there is a lot of bread crumbs I believe law enforcement needs to follow back to find how just how long he has been involved in this and find out if he did in fact exploit any of his students.”
But Caston maintains that none of that will be necessary. He said he is innocent.
“I’m just trusting that the Lord God will deliver me through this situation and, you know, show the world and show my loved ones that these are just false accusations and this is just a test of faith,” said Caston.