BLOUNT COUNTY, Tenn. — The Maryville man who pleaded guilty to five counts of offensive touching last week has a history of complaints that he inappropriately touched children while he was a gym teacher with Blount County Schools.
The Blount County Sheriff's Office provided 10News with a number of police reports filed about Joseph Dalton over the past 19 years.
The allegations in many of the reports are similar and accuse Dalton of touching young girls in an inappropriate manner. A number of the reports are substantiated by security video that school resource officers said showed Dalton caught in the act.
The first complaint was filed on August 26, 2005, and recounts events an SRO at Porter Elementary School said happened a day earlier.
According to that report, Dalton was accused of inappropriately touching a child in gym class.
The child told their parents he touched them on the belly, the leg and in the genital area.
The next report was filed with BCSO 13 years later, on Feb. 22, 2018.
According to that report, the school nurse at Eagleton Elementary School told an SRO they saw Dalton resting his hand on a female student's shoulder and the nurse, "felt uneasy about what she saw."
The resource officer wrote they watched the video, and observed Dalton in the gym, touching female students. At one point, Dalton is seen with two girls on his lap, straddling each knee, with his hands around their waists.
Another report, filed in November 2019, said an Eagleton Elementary SRO was approached by Assistant Principal Nathan Strayn about an issue between Dalton and a gym class student. Strayn told the resource officer that a guidance counselor said a student admitted to being inappropriately touched by Dalton.
According to the report, the student said Dalton touched her on her buttocks during gym class, and told her he had a farm, where he wanted to take her. The report said eventually the case was brought in front of district attorneys, who declined to prosecute it. The report said the DA's office described it as a "he said, she said," type case.
Other complaints said Dalton inappropriately touched children at Walland, Lanier and Friendsville elementary schools. Complaints were filed against him nearly every year since 2018.
Blount County Schools sent 10News a 110-page personnel file for Dalton, and although it's not clear why he kept his job after these complaints, the file did include several instances where where he'd been suspended without pay.
The last update in his personnel file shows the Tennessee Department of Education was in the process of reviewing his teaching license as of November 2023. Dalton resigned from Blount County Schools in Sept. 2023.