ALACHUA – More than a year after the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) began investigating allegations of inappropriate conduct by Santa Fe High School (SFHS) baseball coach Travis Yeckring, sworn complaints have finally surfaced — but not against the coach himself.
Instead, three school administrators — retired SFHS Principal Timothy Wright, former SFHS Assistant Principal David “Mac” Rendek, and SFHS Athletic Director and Title IX officer Michele Faulk — face third–degree felony charges for allegedly failing to report suspected abuse under §§ 39.205(1) and 827.03(2)(d), Florida Statutes.
Alachua County Today obtained all three redacted sworn complaints through a public records request. The reports summarize the selected interviews of six alleged victims and nine witnesses.
The majority of the alleged victims say that Yeckring made them feel uncomfortable, with one alleging that he “grabbed” her hands. In the sworn complaints, FDLE claims that Wright, Rendek, and Faulk failed to report these allegations to the Florida Department of Children and Families. Wright, Rendek, and Faulk deny that they were ever told of any abuse. Several other witnesses support Wright’s, Rendek’s, and Faulk’s positions.
A Case Without a Primary Defendant
Though Yeckring’s name dominates all three sworn complaints, he is not a defendant in any of them. The entire theory behind FDLE’s complaints is that school officials failed to report alleged misconduct by Yeckring. To date, the State has not filed any criminal complaint against Yeckring, and the FDLE complaints do not allege that he committed a crime under Florida law.
More troubling is the internal inconsistency between the FDLE’s criminal theory and the now–dismissed civil lawsuit filed by parent Anneke Acree, whose civil complaint aligns with the statements provided by “Victim 1” in the FDLE documents.
In the civil suit, initially filed on Oct. 30, 2024, and amended on Jan. 8, 2025, against both the Alachua County School Board and the City of Alachua, Acree alleged that her daughter, a student at SFHS, suffered severe and lasting trauma, including hair loss, nausea, irregular menstruation, weight loss, and persistent anxiety. The complaint describes “physical manifestations of psychological harm” and insists the student experienced profound emotional and bodily harm.
However, in the criminal complaints, the FDLE charges are brought under § 827.03(2)(d), which applies only when no great bodily harm or permanent injury is alleged. The civil case insists the child was greatly harmed. The criminal complaints assume she was not.
Timeline Raises Questions About Urgency and Evidence
The investigation into Yeckring began in early 2024. FDLE did not submit sworn complaints until June 2025 — more than 16 months later. Despite the passage of time, the sworn complaints offer no mention of corroborating physical evidence and rely almost entirely on secondhand and thirdhand statements by students and parents.
In fact, FDLE appears to rely on evolving recollections, some of which have morphed over time. For example, Acree’s daughter originally claimed Yeckring showed her a picture of a dog, followed by a second image she later described as a “semi–nude” selfie. According to the sworn criminal complaints, the image showed Yeckring in bed unclothed and a blanket or sheet pulled low on his waste with a dog in his lap. However, a teacher’s recollection of what Acree’s daughter told her was that Yeckring showed her a shirtless selfie. This shirtless selfie is described by several students as Yeckring shirtless, but with a dog covering his chest.
In her civil lawsuit, which was based on the events alleged to have occurred in October 2022, Acree claims that her daughter contacted her from class after Yeckring appeared as a substitute teacher. Acree states she immediately told her daughter to go to the front office. However, in the FDLE criminal complaint, there is no mention at all of this mother-daughter exchange. Acree’s alleged real-time awareness of the situation — which would have been critical to both timing and credibility — is entirely absent from the law enforcement record.
If the civil complaint is accurate, it raises a glaring new issue: Why didn’t Acree herself report the alleged abuse?
Under Florida Statute § 39.201, any person who knows, or has reasonable cause to suspect, that a child is being abused must immediately report it to the Department of Children and Families’ Central Abuse Hotline. There is no exception for parents. In fact, the law imposes criminal penalties for failure to report suspected abuse — the very charge now leveled against the three administrators.
These circumstances beg the question of why didn’t FDLE charge Acree? She claimed direct knowledge of her daughter’s distress. She had reason to believe her child was being harmed by an authority figure. And she had a legal obligation to act. She did not.
Nor does the record indicate that Acree followed up with the school to confirm that her daughter’s claims had been investigated or addressed. She did not report to law enforcement. She did not contact DCF. She did not file a public complaint until two years later — via civil litigation seeking monetary damages.
Another former student reported that Yeckring made her uncomfortable by engaging in conversations and contacting her on Instagram after she turned 18. No physical contact or threat is described. A parent of a baseball player claimed to have seen messages between Yeckring and a former student, but admitted he never showed the alleged communications to SFHS administrators.
Also notable is that nowhere in the three sworn complaints do FDLE investigators indicate that they obtained any photographs, messages, or other evidence to support the allegations against Yeckring and the three administrators.
Despite this, FDLE concluded that administrators were guilty of criminal neglect for failing to investigate and report the incidents — even as the State has thus far taken no legal action against Yeckring for the underlying alleged behavior.
Civil Case Already Collapsed
Acree’s lawsuit, filed in late 2024 and amended in January 2025, was summarily dismantled by Circuit Judge Donna Keim earlier this year. The judge dismissed all three counts — two with prejudice — finding that:
- Florida law does not authorize private lawsuits for violations of mandatory reporting statutes;
- In the count against the City of Alachua’s police department, the plaintiff failed to identify any specific employee who had actual knowledge of abuse; and
- The claimed emotional harm did not meet Florida’s “impact rule”, which requires a direct physical injury or symptoms caused by the emotional trauma.
Judge Keim gave the plaintiff 10 days to amend the negligent supervision claim but made clear that amendment was likely futile. No follow-up complaint was filed, and the case is now closed.
Prosecutorial Review Still Pending
Although FDLE’s sworn criminal complaints have been filed, the State Attorney’s Office has not yet charged Wright, Faulk, or Rendek. The cases remain in preliminary review, and no formal information has been filed. Both Faulk and Rendek are still employed by the Alachua County School Board. Wright is retired.
FDLE’s decision to pursue felony charges against administrators raises a fundamental inconsistency — namely, how they can allege a failure to report criminal activity when the underlying alleged conduct in question has not been formally determined to be criminal at all. If no underlying crime has been charged, it’s unclear how the failure to report that conduct could itself constitute a felony.
The State Attorney’s Office is the final authority in deciding whether to elevate the FDLE complaints into formal felony charges, which must meet the higher legal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt — a significantly stricter threshold than the one used by the FDLE.
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