Opera singer David Daniels and his husband plead guilty to sexual assault
Aug 5, 2023, 6:33 AM
HOUSTON (AP) — A renowned opera singer and his husband have pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another singer in Houston.
Countertenor David Daniels, 57, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Scott Walters, 40, entered the pleas Friday after a jury was assembled for the trial of the pair on first-degree felony charges of aggravated sexual assault.
Both pleaded guilty to sexual assault of an adult, a second-degree felony, and were sentenced to eight years’ probation and required to register as sex offenders.
Daniels, Walters and their attorney declined to comment following the hearing.
Daniels and Walters were charged in 2019 when Samuel Schultz filed a criminal complaint in 2018 alleging the two assaulted him in their apartment in 2010 after he met them at a Houston Grand Opera reception while he was a graduate student at Rice University.
The AP doesn’t normally name victims of sexual assault, but Schultz offered to publicly identify himself to help others fearful of reporting an assault.
Daniels was fired as a University of Michigan professor and was removed by the San Francisco Opera from a production of Handel’s “Orlando” due to sexual assault allegations against the singer by a student at the university in 2018.
