18 Sept 2025

The following is a statement of accountability; people have questions, and I am going to do my best to clarify and take responsibility below.

I had several problematic relationships with alumni of the program at which I taught in which I caused harm. In some of these relationships there was personal and emotional communication while these women were students. During their time as students, these relationships were not physical or sexual and there was no sexual assault, criminality, or explicit communication. However, in two instances (2008 and 2013) a physical relationship began immediately following graduation from the program. In other instances relationships began months or years later. Some of these relationships were physical, and some were not. I never intended harm or was intentionally manipulative, however, I recognize that I disregarded my responsibility and exploited my position of authority as an educator, and that my impact was harmful. I have spent the past four years reckoning with this and focusing on recovery, therapy, offering amends, and trying to make it right by committing to living in integrity and service. I have reached out personally or via my restorative coach to many people to offer these amends/restorative practices, but know I do not determine what healing means for anyone else.

This behavior spoke to an unhealthy need for validation, a lack of understanding that power dynamics do not disappear when someone is no longer a student, and a need to find or make myself an object of romantic obsession. These relationships began between 2007-2014, but in many cases our contact continued long after. My position as a musician has also given me access to unhealthy relationships, in which I was irresponsible and unintentionally hurtful many times.

It is my responsibility to unpack this behavior. In 2021 I checked into a treatment center to confront this disordered relationship to intimacy, romantic intrigue, and entitlement. I was introduced to a recovery program that focuses on intimacy and validation, in which building healthy relationships of all types is the goal. I continue attending multiple meetings weekly, doing prescribed work, seeing my therapist(s) regularly (who specialize in disordered intimacy/attachment), and working with a restorative coach who is also an intimacy coordinator and consent educator in the arts. I have long-standing service commitments in this community, including mentoring others and facilitating meetings in treatment centers. In 2023, as part of my recognition of the harm I caused and how my experience might benefit others, I began working at a treatment center that specializes in disordered intimacy and attachment, where I can help support clients in addressing a relationship to intimacy which has caused great pain in others and/or themselves. I now work with clients as aftercare coordinator, recovery specialist, and support session leader. 

I chose previously not to speak up because apologies without action, attempts to clarify, and centering myself all seemed inappropriate at the time, but now am in a position to address this with evidence of the work I’ve done. Some people advised taking action against defamatory content (e.g. an article auto-populating pictures of convicted offenders), which I declined, but I do believe that no one deserves to receive hateful, threatening, and abusive communication as I have (including messages that I should take my own life). Friends, colleagues, and members of my family have received such harassment.

All of the above underscores the work I’ve done and the work before me. I continue this work as a living apology to those whose trust I violated, whom I hurt, and whom I disappointed—and to honor anyone who has believed in me or been there for me. I value hearing those willing to share and/or anyone who has made grievous errors or had serious work to do, and I am grateful for those perspectives. I know this statement is not enough, I am sorry for the pain and confusion I have caused, and I continue confronting these things in myself and being of service as best I can as I move forward.