Martinez, California – A Contra Costa County jury today (Wednesday) found that aggravating circumstances applied in the case of Nicholas Brandon Moseby, a former middle school teacher previously convicted of sex crimes against minors.
The 44-year-old Concord man was found guilty on October 17th, 2025, following the first phase of his bifurcated trial. The convictions included one felony count of lewd acts upon a child, one felony count of distributing or showing pornography to a minor, and three misdemeanor counts involving child molestation and sexual battery.
Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on one felony count of committing a lewd act upon a child, while Moseby was found not guilty on a separate charge of the same offense. In the second phase of the trial today, the jury determined that the following aggravating factors applied to Moseby’s conviction:
• The victim was particularly vulnerable
• The crimes demonstrated planning and sophistication
• He exploited a position of trust to commit the offenses
The jury did not reach agreement on whether Moseby’s prior convictions showed a pattern of increasing seriousness, and Judge John W. Kennedy declared a mistrial on that specific factor.
These true findings by the jury will allow a judge to impose a longer sentence when Moseby appears for sentencing at 8:30 a.m. on December 19th at the A.F. Bray Courthouse in Martinez.
The case originated in September 2022 when a minor victim reported incidents to authorities. Following an investigation by the Contra Costa County Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, additional victims came forward. Moseby was arrested on September 14, 2022, and charged two days later. Deputy District Attorney Jessica Murad prosecuted the case.
At the time of his arrest, Moseby was employed as a biology teacher at Diablo Vista Middle School in Danville and as a cheerleading instructor at Nor Cal Elites in San Ramon.
I hope that SRVUSD is investigated for hiring this teacher. He was arrested for giving alcohol to his 18 year old girlfriend in 2009 and then in 2015 for soliciting a prostitute. The district says these charges didn’t appear on the background check, though the alcohol charge was dismissed and disclosed to the district by Moseby.
There were ongoing complaints at the high school but those records were somehow lost. The assistant principal, Nikki Chaplan, was rumored to be his friend. Students hung signs saying “pedophile” on his classroom door. The district then moved him from the high school to the middle school.
There have been a lot of articles in the past couple of years. This one has some history. It’s a bit gross, so fair warning:
https://hoodline.com/2025/10/danville-teacher-who-sent-sex-videos-to-teen-gets-harsher-sentence-after-jury-finds-he-exploited-students/