Sexual harassment charges against former GFPS teacher dismissed in settlement

The district attorney’s office has reached a plea agreement with William Harning, a former Great Falls Public Schools teacher charged in 2023 with six felony counts of child sexual abuse.

The plea agreement reduces the six felony charges to two misdemeanor counts of obscenity, but prosecutors dismissed the second charge in exchange for Harning’s guilty plea.

In an agreement signed Aug. 29, the district attorney’s office proposes a $500 fine and six months in the Cascade County Adult Detention Center with probation.

Prosecutor Kory Larsen filed a motion on August 30 to set aside the scheduled trial date and change the date for the guilty plea hearing.

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The hearing was scheduled for April, but Larsen said at the time that a motion to disqualify the expert had been filed, which required responses and more questioning, and the hearing was therefore canceled and rescheduled for September.

In October 2023, Harning appeared in district court and pleaded not guilty to all six felony charges.

He was arrested in Washington and booked into Whatcom County Jail but released on September 13, 2023.

Harning posted $20,000 bond in September, Larsen said last fall.

Harning is a former art teacher in Great Falls Public Schools.

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In late August 2023, a warrant was issued for Harning’s arrest in connection with an incident first reported in December 2021. He was arrested in Washington and made his first in-person appearance in Cascade County in mid-September 2023.

Harning appeared on Zoom on Oct. 4 because the terms of his bond were changed to allow him to return to Washington, where he now lives, Larsen told The Electric magazine in October.

Former GFPS teacher accused of sending and possessing explicit photos of minors

According to charging documents filed in Cascade County District Court, on Dec. 14, 2021, the principal of Great Falls High School told Detective Clint Houston, then a school resource officer, that Harning had been sending inappropriate photos to a 17-year-old student at the school. Harning’s face is visible in the photo, according to charging documents.

Houston contacted Det. Scott Bambenek for assistance. Bambenek is a GFPD detective in the Internet Crimes Against Children unit.

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The victim’s mother, who is being withheld at the family’s request to protect the victim, told The Electric that the plea agreement was “disgusting” to her.

She added that she wants clarification from the Victim and Witness Agency on whether Harning will have to register as a sex offender now that the charges have been reduced.

She said her son is openly gay and that he never attended Harning’s class.

She said her son received a friend request on Snapchat from someone with a different name than Harning and that Harning was posing as a college friend who was inviting her son to Harning’s house.

She added that her son did not go to the teacher’s house and that Harning later sent her son multiple inappropriate photos via Snapchat.

The victim’s mother testified that her son took a screenshot of the photos and one of them showed Harning’s face reflected in the image and he was wearing a Great Falls High T-shirt.

She said her son brought it to the attention of school officials, who immediately investigated. Fox said she and her son immediately shared his phone and all of Harning’s messages with investigators.

On Dec. 14, 2021, detectives contacted Harning in his classroom, which was empty during pretrial detention. He was using his cellphone when detectives entered and then placed the phone on a table, according to court documents.

Harning agreed to go to Houston’s office to talk to him, but left his phone on the table, and Bambenek took the phone as evidence. Harning refused to make a statement and was released while the investigation continued, according to court documents.

After obtaining additional information from the student, Bambenek obtained a warrant to search Harning’s phone.

“Due to the large number of outstanding devices, the phone could not be searched until May 2023,” according to court documents.

At that time, Agent Brian Cassidy of the Montana Department of Justice’s Criminal Investigation Division gave Bambenek information regarding the cellphone seizure, court documents show.

The victim’s mother said she understood the GFPD was struggling with staffing shortages and a backlog, but she was disappointed when the case stalled and hired a Billings attorney to help her through the process.

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According to court documents, Bambenek reviewed the data, which included numerous self-taken sexually explicit photos of Harning and numerous sexually explicit photos of children ranging in age from approximately five to eighteen.

In August 2023, Bambenek had a certified pediatric nurse review the images to ensure they were child sexual abuse material. The nurse determined they were sexually explicit images of children between the ages of 5 and 16.

On August 14, Bambenek asked the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to review 370 photos recovered from Harning’s phone to identify possible child victims.

Last fall, a reader asked The Electric why the GFPD couldn’t look through Harning’s phone themselves.

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GFPD Chief of Police Jeff Newton told The Electric last fall that in order to obtain full evidence in criminal cases, the phone must go to an office whose employees have the authority to obtain information and later use that evidence in court proceedings at both the state and federal levels.

Newton told The Electric magazine in the fall that if the call had not been sent to the appropriate people seeking information, the charge would have been only a misdemeanor.

He added that the case was designated as Internet Crimes Against Children and, as per procedures, the phone was immediately forwarded to the Criminal Investigations Division of the Montana Department of Justice, in accordance with ICAC guidelines, for data extraction.

Newton said the delay was due to the state agency having a backlog of cases and that the GFPD was unable to speed up its processes.

Former GFPS teacher accused of sending and possessing explicit photos of minors

Former Capt. Rob Moccasin, GFPD chief of detective work in fall 2023, said the training, equipment and pay would make it unprofitable for GFPD to hire someone for this type of work.

He added that preparing the case for trial would require more work than most people think.

“MDCI does a great job for us, and like us, they have to prioritize their requests because they cover the entire state. It’s not typical for it to take that long, but it depends on the type of crimes that are happening in the state at that time,” Moccasin told The Electric.

According to the Cascade County Attorney’s Office, Harning was in Washington state when the warrant was issued.

Former GFPS Superintendent Tom Moore told The Electric in October 2023 that after receiving the initial report, Harning was placed on administrative leave and did not return to the district. Moore said GFPS forwarded all of the information to the Montana Office of Public Instruction for an investigation and eventual revocation of his Montana teaching license.

Harning previously served as director of education at the Gibson Art Museum in Paris.

According to the warrant, Harning’s bail was set at $20,000.

The Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office in Washington told The Electric that on September 12, 2023, its deputies were notified by the Snohomish County Violent Offender Task Force that Harning had been taken into custody.

The man was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in Seattle as part of the Violent Offenders Task Force, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office said.

According to WCSO, Harning had an outstanding warrant out of Cascade County for six counts of aggravated child sexual abuse.

Officers from the World Community Police Service (WCSO) met with the Violent Offenders Task Force at the jail and arrested Harning.

According to WCSO, given the current status of the arrest warrant issued by Montana, probable cause existed to justify Harning’s arrest as a fugitive from justice and his placement in the Whatcom County Jail.