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Who is David Hay? Former Wisconsin principal accused of exchanging sexually explicit photos with teenage boy

In 2019, Hay was busted after months of messaging a cop who he believed was a teenager

A former official of the US Department of Education has pleaded guilty to a federal child pornography charge in Wisconsin on Tuesday, September 15. David Arnold Hay, who was recently the Deputy Chief of staff to Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza, exchanged sexually explicit emails with a 15-year-old boy when he was employed as the principal of a Wisconsin high school in May 2010.

From 2008 to 2011, Hay worked as the principal of Kettle Moraine High School, according to a TMJ 4 Milwaukee report. During that time, he exchanged emails with a 15-year-old boy. During their communication, Hay received sexually-explicit photos and videos from the teen while Hay sent some himself. Hay resigned from Kettle Moraine in 2011 after the district discovered irregularities with Hay’s licensing and the misuse of a district credit card.

He then joined as a principal of Tomah High School from 2011 until 2014. Hay was terminated by the Department of Education in 2019, when he was arrested in December 2019 at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport for attempting to lure a 14-year-old to a local hotel room with a hot tub for sex. He was busted after months of messaging a cop who he believed was a teenage boy he'd be meeting up named Colton.

After the arrest, the charges of which were eventually dropped as reported by NY Times, police discovered many snaps of Hay, which included many old photos of a naked student on Hay's phone, leading to the additional child pornography charges. According to the NY Times report, officials have admitted that Hay was never fully investigated by the city’s Department of Investigation and blamed the failure on a massive backlog of 6,000 background checks that have plagued the office for years.

Hay was making $168,000 annually at the time of his arrest. Carranza recently replaced him with Gabrielle Ramos, who is making $181,750 a year now. However, the news left several people in shock, one Internet user tweeted, "Ex-DOE official David Hay pleads guilty 2 child pornography charge. Another Obama era employee (DOE). Arrested & replaced. If you ask me, a NORMAL Trump supporter, there R way 2 many Obama holdovers in this admin. After1/6/21, get rid of all of them!" Another one said, "Another pervert embedded into our education system. #DavidHay child pornography."

Democrat Ritchie Torres tweeted, "I am introducing a bill that would require the City to eliminate the backlog of background checks--6500 cases at its peak! Good government depends on thorough and timely background investigations, which prevent corruption from creeping into positions of power."