By Canadian Press

Texas grand jury indicts Michigan professor on assault claim

Jul 26, 2019 | 5:45 PM

HOUSTON — A grand jury in Texas this week indicted a University of Michigan professor who’s also a renowned opera singer on one count of sexual assault for what prosecutors say was the rape of an incapacitated man in 2010.

The grand jury in Houston handed up the indictment Thursday of countertenor David Daniels and his husband, William Scott Walters, each on a sexual assault count.

Daniels, 53, and Walters, 36, were arrested in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in January on warrants arising from the criminal complaint of Samuel Schultz.

Schultz told The Associated Press at the time that the couple drugged and assaulted him when he was living in Houston as a 23-year-old graduate student at Rice University. Schultz met them at a Houston Grand Opera reception and was invited back to their apartment, where he said he was given a drink that led him to slip in and out of consciousness. He filed a criminal complaint with Houston police in July of last year.

The AP doesn’t normally name victims of sexual assault but Schultz had offered to publicly identify himself to help others fearful of reporting an assault.

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The Houston-based attorney for the couple, Matt Hennessy, said Friday that Schultz’s allegations are false.

“He is not a victim,” Hennessy said. “He drove himself to David and Scott’s apartment at 3:20 a.m. to meet them after a night of partying. But he leaves that fact out every time he tells the story. You have to wonder why.”

The University of Michigan previously placed Daniels on paid leave amid several sexual harassment claims made by students and a civil lawsuit filed by a former student alleging he was sexually assaulted by Daniels in 2017, according to MLive.com. He has denied those allegations as well.

Daniels is a tenured professor earning nearly $191,000 a year, MLive.com reported, and the university confirmed earlier this month that it’s begun the process to terminate him.

The Associated Press