After a former Douglas Anderson student accused her teacher of sexual battery when she was 14, the state of Florida closed its investigation into him without speaking to the accuser.

In an interview with a Duval Schools investigator last year, the former student, now an adult, accused former film department head Corey Thayer, now 55, of forcing her to have sex several times on campus in 2013. 

The Florida Department of Education opened its own investigation in September 2023 but closed it this year, the state says, because the accuser refused to meet — a claim her lawyer denies and that emails reviewed by Jacksonville Today contradict.   

---

After Jacksonville Today last week first reported the specifics of the accusations that led to Thayer’s removal from — then brief return to — the classroom last year, Duval School Board member April Carney emailed the story to Randy Kosec, the state Department of Education’s Office of Professional Practices chief. 

“I am curious as to why this educator has not had his teaching certificate revoked in the State of Florida,” Carney wrote. 

He responded that his office had closed its investigation on Oct. 7, 2024, “based on the recommendation of our Office of General Counsel.”

Kosec told Carney the investigation was closed because neither the alleged victim nor her attorney would meet with his office for an interview, and so they “have no victim in this case.”

“…we can always reopen the case should new information become available or if the victim is willing to cooperate with our investigation in the future,” Kosec wrote last Friday.

A Department of Education spokesperson repeated the same justification late Wednesday to Jacksonville Today. 

Spokesperson Sydney Booker said state investigators were “not allowed to interview the victim and [were] not provided a written statement of the alleged abuse, which had also been requested by the department.”

“Without victim cooperation, and without criminal charges being filed, the Department had no choice but to close the case as No Further Action,” Booker said.

However, previous emails between Kosec and the accuser’s attorney, Chris Moser, contradict that she was uncooperative with the state investigation. Both the accuser and her attorney shared detailed information with and agreed last year to meet with state investigators, the messages show. 

The woman who made the allegations against Thayer gave her mother permission to share the emails with Jacksonville Today. 

Emails tell a different story

Moser, the accuser’s lawyer, reported Thayer to the Florida Department of Education in August of 2023, after he’d been returned to the classroom following an earlier district-level investigation. Kosec responded the next day and asked for information from Duval Schools’ probe. Moser sent him 10 files.

On Sept. 15, Kosec updated Moser. His office was reviewing everything she’d sent, he said, and he asked if she or her client would sit with a state investigator for an interview. 

“We can work with whichever avenue you prefer to take,” he wrote.

Moser responded that night that her client was “prepared to give testimony” at an administrative hearing, as soon as one was scheduled, and potentially would give an interview “in addition,” if requested. Moser suggested taking the testimony over Zoom would be easiest. 

The next month, in October 2023, the accuser participated in the sworn interview with Duval Schools. In it, she laid out her accusations in graphic detail. In January 2024, Kosec asked Moser for a copy of the transcript. She sent it to him on Jan. 9.  

Moser said after that, the state did not reach back out to her. 

---

The district recently settled a civil case with the accuser for an undisclosed amount. According to her mother, the alleged victim was assured Thayer would resign and surrender his teaching license. He resigned from a non-teaching “disciplinary surplus” position with Duval Schools this June, but his state teaching certificate remains active.

“It is simply unfathomable that he would still be allowed to teach children in the state of Florida,” the accuser’s mother says. “It deeply saddens me that the DOE cannot see that as well.”