In June 2022, Upper Arlington alumnus Essie Baird accused former Greensview Elementary School gym teacher Joel Cutler of sexually assaulting her between the years 2000 and 2003. Cutler was indicted by a Madison County grand jury on nine charges: two counts of rape, four counts of sexual battery, and three counts of sexual misconduct with a minor. Shortly after his indictment, Cutler pleaded not guilty.
In early November, Madison County Prosecutor Nicholas Adkins’ office, representing Baird, extended a plea deal to Cutler. This deal offered that if Cutler were to plead guilty to one count of felony child endangerment he would avoid registering as a sex offender and prosecutors would drop all other charges. Under this plea deal, Cutler could face six months of jail time, a $10,000 fine, 10,000 hours of community service, and five years of community control.
Cutler had been employed by Upper Arlington City Schools since 1999, working as a track and field coach at Hastings Middle School, a physical education teacher at Greensview Elementary School (among other locations), and a football coach at Upper Arlington High School.
“I remember Coach Cutler mostly as just a guy who seemed to really love his job and get along well with kids. He was kind of the teacher that everyone liked… because his class was gym,” senior Manny Stavridis said. “I put my trust in him, and, you know, he might be a rapist. It makes you question a lot about, ‘Do you really know who people are?’”
2000-2003
Baird alleged that her relationship with Cutler began when she was 12 years old, with Cutler coaching her track and field team while she was a student at Hastings Middle School.
“I think it was a long series of manipulation,” she said. “And it started with him noticing a particular vulnerability in me.”
Cutler employed a common technique used by child groomers; recognizing Baird’s weaknesses and isolating her from her peers. Initially, he gave a group of girls his phone number to call him and noticed Baird to be especially susceptible to his manipulation.
“I kind of shared with the court last week that he was really good at rewarding my behavior and really good at complimenting me in the areas that I was the most insecure about,” she said.
Their relationship began when Cutler invited Baird to join the Hastings track and field team despite Baird not yet being of age to compete.
“He didn’t ask any other sixth graders to practice with the team, so he made me feel special. He said I was the best athlete on the team, even though I was only in sixth grade,” Baird said. “And then it became an opportunity from there to get me alone, like in the track shed. So, I would come early to practice or I’d be one of the last people there.”
Baird shared that she began to form a personal relationship with Cutler during this time.
“He would openly talk about issues he was having, and I would empathize with him. And then he would compliment me for that,” she said. “He would say things that were subtle to see if I would take the bait.”
Baird recounted how Cutler would use his influence over her to make her feel insecure and form a reliance on him.
“He made me feel really bad that I hadn’t been baptized and that I didn’t go to church. So, he basically would say, ‘I can’t marry you unless you convert to Catholicism.’ And so I started going to church in middle school,” she said. “I got baptized, and he came to my baptism and told me how proud he was of me.”
Cutler’s manipulation of Baird was both emotional and sexual in nature, Baird reported.
“It was just a ton of back and forth of making me feel bad about who I was, shaming me for being a particular way, and then springing back and rewarding me with a lot of verbal affirmation,” she said. “Sexual [affirmation] was a huge component of that, too, because of the chemical attachment that especially a little girl would have to somebody [while] not understanding the chemical response that is happening when you’re sleeping with somebody.”
Those close to Baird were oblivious to her inappropriate relationship with Cutler. Baird noted that he befriended her parents and gained their permission to stay at their house on Friday nights after football games.
“So it’s basically making my mom and my dad be the responsible ones, you know… They just saw [Cutler] as a coach and a mentor to their daughters,” Baird said. “They did not see [him] as a sexual predator.”
2021-2023
“It must be noted that every teacher, coach, and other persons working with minors is at high risk of false or exaggerated allegations,” criminal defense attorney Brad Koffel said in a statement posted on his website. “The problem with this case is the 20-year delay. Juries do not like delays and tend to be inherently suspicious of former students coming forward so many years later.”
Baird and Cutler’s relationship took place in the early 2000s, however, it wasn’t until 2021 that Baird opened an investigation against Cutler. She relayed that while the investigation was opened with a Burlington police department, the case was eventually transferred to Madison County due to a series of complications. She then presented a Madison County grand jury with her indictment, where she and two detectives testified against Cutler.
“It was [a] 100% true bill, which means that the evidence we presented along with our testimony said every single member of this jury believed I was telling the truth and believed that this actually happened,” Baird said.
Cutler was indicted on all nine counts. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, when a person is indicted they are given formal notice that it is believed that they committed a crime. Following his indictment, Cutler pleaded not guilty to the charges.
“Mr. Cutler was indicted based upon the uncorroborated word of an accuser; he entered a not guilty plea and asserted his right to have this case presented to a jury,” Koffel said. “This changed the State’s focus from ‘do we have enough to indict’ to ‘do we have enough to convict?’”
Baird shared that, prior to the trial, her prosecutor proposed offering a plea agreement to Cutler in which he would plead guilty to one count of unlawful sexual misconduct with a minor, which would require him to register as a sex offender and spend up to five years in prison.
“At the time, I was kind of upset with that because I wanted a felony that guaranteed prison time because I believe that he deserved to go to prison in addition to being exposed for being a sex offender,” Baird said. “But he proceeded with offering the felony three plea agreement… the defense came back and they declined it.”
Cutler’s defense stated that they would not accept “anything that is a felony that has any sexual orientation attached to it at all.” A trial date was set for Nov. 27, 2023.
“Two months before we’re set to go to trial [I] get an email from Madison County that said, ‘hey, the defense came to us again… asking if there was a potential plea agreement we could do’… They mentioned they would plead guilty to a felony but, again, didn’t want to plead guilty to any felony sexual in nature,” Baird said. “And so I wrote back and said, ‘Thank you for letting me know and thank you again for holding to the sexual orientation of these felonies. It means nothing without that.’”
Baird later learned from a detective who aided her in the indictment process that her prosecuting attorney had extended the plea deal behind her back.
“The prosecution offered a plea agreement, and the plea agreement was for child endangerment, which is not any of the charges or any of the felonies he was originally charged for,” she said. “They wrote [to] me and said that clean negotiations and conversations were happening but they did not tell me what they offered.”
Baird expressed frustration over her prosecuting attorney’s handling of the situation.
“They did not tell me that they were even considering offering a felony that was not sexual orientation– that was blindsiding to me, they did not discuss this with me,” she said. “I was not informed of this plea agreement. And it was for a felony that doesn’t really fit the crime [of] child endangerment. Yes, in part, he endangered me, but he also raped me.”
Cutler’s defense team agreed to the plea agreement and it was accepted by Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Daniel Hogan on Nov. 21, 2023. Cutler pleaded guilty to one count of felony child endangerment; in exchange, prosecutors dropped all other charges, and Baird’s request for him to be registered as a sex offender was declined.
“It was just a huge slap in the face to find out, not even from the prosecutor, that this had happened. And to feel really just left out of the entire process after such a long period of time,” Baird said. “Everybody was told to keep quiet and it’s like ‘no, no, stop telling everyone to keep quiet’; the whole problem with this is that we’re all told to keep quiet and it needs to be talked about. That’s, I guess, my overall mission in all of this, is just coming forward and being open.”
