More than three months after his arrest by the Ukiah Police Department, local journalist and teacher Matthew P. LaFever has yet to be charged with a crime by the Mendocino County District Attorney’s Office.
As of this week, Mendocino County Superior Court documents only show a “miscellaneous criminal petition” was filed on Dec. 2, 2025. When asked for more details regarding that filing, Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster said Thursday that he would not have characterized it as criminal “because it is only criminal when we file criminal charges,” which he said had not been done.
“I’m still the DA, but I am not handling this case,” Eyster said of any potential charges against LaFever, who ran a local news website and was working as a journalism teacher at Ukiah High School at the time of his arrest on Nov. 3, 2025.
In its initial press release, the UPD reported being informed the previous month by a concerned parent that a Ukiah High teacher identified as LaFever “had made an inappropriate sexual comment towards her daughter,” and later officers interviewed “a different UHS student who had information regarding LaFever contacting minors on social media.”
After obtaining a search warrant for the teacher’s cell phone, computers, and residence, the UPD reports that detectives contacted him at Ukiah High on Oct. 16 and “seized his cell phone and multiple laptops,” devices upon which they reportedly found evidence confirming that the interactions described by the 17-year-old had occurred.
When the UPD later forwarded its case against LaFever, at the time a 37-year-old Hopland resident, to Eyster’s office, the resulting charge was one misdemeanor count of “annoying or molesting a minor,” in this case a 17-year-old girl that LaFever allegedly sent inappropriate communications to while aware of her age.
Eyster then appointed what he described as a senior attorney in his office “with no prior knowledge” of LaFever to handle the case, a staff member he named Thursday as Robert Waner, whom he said previously worked for the Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office.
When asked via email to provide an update on the potential case against LaFever, including why no charges had yet been filed, Waner responded simply that he was “unable to comment on a pending investigation.”
When Eyster asked Waner for an update last week on the case, the DA said he learned that his office is “still waiting for a determination from the Special Master,” whom he said has been appointed to evaluate whether any of the evidence seized was privileged due to LaFever’s work as a reporter.
At the time of LaFever’s arrest, the UPD reported learning that the teacher and journalist (who founded the formerly robust but now-deactivated local news website MendoFever.com) may have contacted multiple minors in Mendocino and Sonoma counties. When asked Thursday if he had ordered law enforcement not to access LaFever’s devices, Eyster said that Waner had.
After his arrest, the Ukiah Unified School District reported that LaFever was placed on administrative leave on “Oct. 16 when law enforcement first informed us of the situation. The staff member remains off campus, and will not return to the classroom while investigations continue.”
When asked Thursday about the status of LaFever’s employment, UUSD officials said he was “currently on paid leave.”
(Ukiah Daily Journal)
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