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from www.chicagotribune.com – A Lake Forest middle school principal was placed on paid leave Thursday after the Tribune began asking questions about the way the district handled his use of a work cellphone to send a sexually explicit photograph and messages to a 22-year-old college student.

John Steinert, 40, principal of Deer Path Middle School, pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment through electronic communications in May 2009, according to court records. As a result, the Lake Forest School District 67 issued a reprimand, required him to seek counseling and temporarily froze his salary, Superintendent Harry Griffith said.

After the Tribune recently began investigating the matter, officials re-examined the case and took action against the principal.

“I am suspending him immediately, and placing him on administrative leave pending further evaluation of the new information that we have,” Griffith said. “We are going to review this information, which is new to us, and take that into account.”

Griffith said that the district based its disciplinary action on a heavily redacted police report obtained through a Freedom of Information request to Gurnee police in January 2009. Griffith said the report at the time did not contain the graphic details of the texts that the principal sent to the woman, who had visited the school while serving a college internship with the Lake Forest Police Department.

Griffith provided a copy of the report he received from police in February 2009, which showed that the graphic portions of the texts were redacted because of the ongoing investigation.

Gurnee police Cmdr. Jay Patrick confirmed that the report lacked two supplements that were released later after the case was settled.

Griffith said the district conducted its own investigation, during which another employee interviewed Steinert “multiple times.” School officials did not interview the victim because the case “did not involve any minors or any employees,” he said.

The district did not notify the Illinois State Board of Education about the conviction because, as a misdemeanor, it was not required, Griffith said.

According to Gurnee police, Steinert admitted that he sent the intern text messages between May 30, 2008, and June 13, 2008, and again between December 2008 and January 2009. Some of the texts were sexually explicit, including one in which Steinert asked the woman if she wanted him to perform specific sexual acts with her. Steinert also admitted to police that he sent the woman a photograph of his penis, the police report states.

The state board, also prompted by questions from the Tribune, opened an investigation Thursday into whether Steinert’s education certificate should be suspended or revoked based on his professional conduct, an agency spokeswoman said.

Steinert expressed remorse in a written statement Thursday, but declined to answer questions.

“Three years ago I made a big mistake in my personal life,” Steinert said. “I still regret my actions … and what I did to another individual to cause them to stress. I was forthcoming to law enforcement and to everyone. I completed my community service and fines prescribed by the court.”

He and his wife have continued to attend counseling, he said. “I am filled with remorse and am sorry for any embarrassment that this has caused my family and the school community.”

The young woman, now 24, was a Lake Forest College student who interned with local police during the spring 2008 semester. She visited Deer Path School about 10 times while shadowing a school resource officer, and began receiving the texts and voice mails in May, shortly after the internship ended.

She filed her complaint in January 2009 with police in Gurnee, where she then lived. She has asked not to be identified because of privacy concerns after the Tribune obtained a copy of the police report.

“It was a pretty bad situation,” said the woman, who is now enrolled at Loyola University law school. “It kept happening for months. I was like, ‘Stop texting me, I’m going to call the police, leave me alone.'”

When interviewed by detectives, Steinert viewed and initialed a copy of each text message that police obtained from the former intern to verify that they came from him, according to a police report.

The woman told police that she never gave her number to Steinert.