By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2026-06-14 22:57:41 | Updated at 2026-06-18 17:14:32
3 days ago
Police have arrested and charged a former cop working as a criminal-justice teacher in a northwestern Idaho high school with sexual battery of a minor following a three-week investigation by local authorities in Nampa, the state’s third largest city.
Nampa police were notified of “suspicious behavior” involving Troy Wayne McFadden, 46, a faculty member of Ridgevue High School, which is located about 20 miles west of Boise.
The suspicions concern an interaction that McFadden allegedly had off campus with a teenage student, the police statement said. Detectives policing the city of some 100,000 residents “immediately” launched an investigation, police said.
As a result, on June 11, police arrested McFadden, booked him into the Canyon County Jail, and charged him with “sexual battery of a minor child between the ages of 16 and 17,” according to the department.
It was not revealed whether the alleged victim was male or female.
According to McFadden’s LinkedIn account, as reported by Boise’s KTVB7, the Vallivue School District hired him last August for the high school where he taught criminal justice a part of the school’s Career and Technical Education programs.
His name is still listed on the school’s staff directory, according to the outlet.
However, the Vallivue School District told KTVB that McFadden’s teaching contract was not renewed for the 2026-27 school year. The district added he did undergo a criminal background check prior to his hiring, as required by Idaho law.
The district issued a statement that has come to resemble the boilerplate response to teacher sexual misconduct, which has been described by criminal justice experts as “rampant” across the U.S. in the past two decades, Breitbart News reported in an investigation earlier this year.
The statement said:
The district is grateful that concerns were reported to law enforcement, allowing authorities to investigate the matter and helping support the safety and well-being of children in our community. The safety and well-being of students remain the district’s highest priority. Vallivue School District remains committed to maintaining safe learning environments for all students and staff.
McFadden previously worked for the Idaho State Police as a regional communications officer, KTVB reported.
Under Idaho law, the sexual battery of a minor charge can include a variety of forms of sexual activity, ranging from solicitation to fondling to “other lewd or lascivious act or acts.”
“Investigators believe this is an isolated incident and have no indication of other victims,” the police department statement said. “Nampa Police detectives ask that parents speak with their children who may have had contact with McFadden and report any inappropriate conduct.”
Breitbart News’s investigation in March of educator sexual misconduct found that the problem was occurring at epidemic levels — impacting school districts large and small, urban and rural, and both public and private.
Leading researchers interviewed said cases persist because students are reluctant to report sexual abuse, and educators are reluctant to alert authorities to suspicious activity by their colleagues for fear of disrupting professional harmony in the school setting.
Apparently, someone in the school overcame that kind of reluctance in Nampa case.
“Witnessing suspicious behavior and alerting an adult is commendable,” said Sergeant Brad Barnum of the department’s Persons Crimes Division.
He continued, “Those who notified police of something that appeared to be out of the norm and inappropriate were brave and did the right thing. With their help, we were able to stop a very dangerous situation.”
The sexual battery of a minor charge can carry a sentence of 25 years to life in Idaho.
Veteran crime writer Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets, which documents one of the worst cases of child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
