Countertenor David Daniels Pleads Guilty to Sexual Assault Charge

Daniels and his husband Scott Walters reversed their original plea at the eleventh hour, following drawn-out proceedings of at least five years

Countertenor David Daniels and his husband Scott Walters have pleaded guilty to a charge of sexual assault, presented against them by another singer. The lawsuit has been protracted, taking at least five years, with Daniels and Walters continually proclaiming their innocence throughout that time.

However, with the trial about to begin, the pair chose to plead guilty to the second-degree felony of sexual assault of an adult. By doing so, they will likely avoid the jail time associated with the original first-degree charge, and will instead receive eight years of probation — as well as being required to register as sex offenders.

Their victim was the young baritone Chris Schultz, who is now 36 years old. He has chosen to make his name public to offer support and solidarity to other sexual assault victims.

At the time of the assault in 2010, Schultz was a graduate student at Rice University and met Daniels and Walters at a party following a performance that Daniels had given at the Houston Grand Opera. The pair invited Schultz back to their apartment, where they gave him a spiked drink which caused him to lose consciousness and then carried out the assault.

Schultz's experience was not an isolated incident. In 2018, another student sued Daniels for sexual assault — alleging that Daniels had groped him, requested sexual photos, and served him alcohol and sleep medication. As a result of that suit, Daniels was removed from his position as a professor at the University of Michigan and was also fired from the San Francisco Opera's 2019 production of Handel's Orlando.

At the time, MLive Michigan reported that University of Michigan staff had expressed concern over the hiring of Daniels in 2015, with one noting that senior staff would need to "tell him to keep his hands off" students.

"It has been 13 years since I first experienced this trauma, and the last five years have been way more difficult than I could have imagined," Schultz told NPR. "A large part of that is the delay tactics the defense used to try to exhaust me, to try to make me give up. And we see people who can't beat the truth use delay tactics to further malign the people they've abused."

"The reality is these defendants admitted their guilt in court on Friday after spending the last five years lying about their innocence," he added. "In a sense, I've been the one on public trial. I've been the one expected to cope with the burden of publicly calling out dangerous people. I never imagined they would admit their guilt."

A 2021 statement claiming Daniels' innocence remains active on his website.