A high-ranking New York City education official arrested at Mitchell Airport over the weekend was trying to meet a 14-year-old boy for sexual activities, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
David Hay,39, appeared before a federal judge in Green Bay on Friday. He will be released to live with his parents in Wisconsin with electronic monitoring and home detention.
Hay's attorney told reporters he believes there was a rush to judgment regarding his client.
"The complaint himself doesn't suggest that he, my client, ever tried to meet anyone," attorney Jonathan Smith said.
According to the criminal complaint, an undercover investigator with the Neenah Police Department logged into a dating app called Grindr, posing as a 14-year-old boy named Colton from Neenah. The complaint indicates Hay first messaged Colton in July.
Investigators say Colton messaged Hay, "Im 14 not 18", to which Hay is accused of replying, "Yea I'm good w that."
The complaint goes on to allege Hay discussed meeting up several more times, including most recently at the end of December. Prosecutors say Hay booked a hotel in Neenah for December 28.
But then the complaint says Hay texted, "Hey Colton... Unfortunately it's not going to work again...my parents have an emergency and I have to go help them..."
Hay was arrested at Mitchell airport the next day.
After searching his phone, investigators found explicit images of a former Tomah High School student who investigators believe is under the age of 18 in the photo.
Investigators identify the person in the photo as John Doe and says, "John Doe informed me that he never had any sort of inappropriate contact with David Hay when he was a juvenile, but that he may have sent the photographs to David after he was an adult."
It's an allegation Hay's attorney disputes.
"The person they identified as being the subject matter of the photo is born in 1994, which when they say it was somehow sent, or something, in 2015, that would make the person 20 or 21," Smith said.
Hay is due back in court on January 14.
After Hay was arrested, officials searched his phone and found sexually explicit images of a former Tomah High School student, where he was a principal from 2011 to 2014.
Hay was also a principal in Kettle Moraine School District from 2008 to 2011.
Hay was let go from Kettle Morraine in 2011 because he no longer held the necessary licensing and had also improperly used a district credit card.
"The district has no knowledge of any concerns that are of the nature of the investigation leading to the arrest of Mr. Hay," said Kettle Moraine School District Superintendent Patricia Deklotz. "We have been contacted by authorities investigating this matter and we are fully cooperating with their requests."
Hay faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and up to a lifetime of imprisonment if convicted of the first charge and up to 10 if convicted on the second.
