On Jan. 21, under the provisions of the attorney-client doctrine, former Santa Clara City Council Member Dominic Caserta participated in a polygraph examination regarding allegations of misconduct by a volunteer for Caserta’s supervisorial campaign, Lydia Jungkind. Caserta requested the polygraph test and signed a waiver citing his participation as entirely voluntary in an attempt to dispel the accusations against him.
Caserta was questioned on various incidents pertaining to the allegations after being accused of inappropriate sexual behavior with female students during his time as a teacher at Santa Clara High School and District 4 candidate for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors. The examiner has conducted over 11,000 polygraph examinations and is used by law enforcement throughout California. The examiner categorized the test as a “Sex Offense Lie Issue type test for question formulation purposes.”
The polygraph examiner concluded that Caserta passed with the highest score, 99.9 percent. Jungkind, who accused Caserta of sexual misconduct after working on his supervisorial campaign, has not participated in a polygraph.
Relevant questions were hand scored by the polygraph governing board. The instrument recorded his breathing, changes in blood pressure, and pulse rate throughout the examination period. The results indicated that Caserta was being truthful in his responses, and, after analysis of the test charts, the examiner determined that Caserta was in no way deceptive with his answers.
“Dominic Caserta has been devastated since the Santa Clara Unified School District released his confidential employment file to over 1,600 staff members,” said a statement from Mlnarik Law Group, Inc., the firm representing Caserta. “The School District’s actions led to a series of nightmare scenarios executed in a malicious, calculating and vindictive manner by political enemies and their operatives. Dominic’s polygraph results clearly and convincingly refute the accusations made against him and he looks forward to continuing to rebuild his reputation.”
Caserta continues to maintain his innocence. He claims that the incident was an effort to derail his front-leading status as a candidate for the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors — accusations were made public 29 days before the primary election.
Additionally, Caserta’s Santa Clara Unified School District personnel record was leaked to about 1,600 district employees and a San Jose Inside journalist, revealing the names of Santa Clara High School students who made the 2002 and 2009 complaints against him.
Following the public allegations and leak, Caserta resigned from his Santa Clara City Council seat in May 2018. He also halted his campaign for the District 4 Supervisor seat. Caserta, who taught civics at Santa Clara High School, is currently on paid administrative leave, according to the Santa Clara Unified School District.
After being accused of misconduct, all sexual harassment charges involving Caserta were officially dropped in August 2018 by the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office citing “insufficient evidence.”
Is he still on paid administrative leave from his teaching job?
Thank you for your question. Yes, he is still on paid leave. We have updated the story to reflect this.
How sad that he had to go through this! It now all makes sense how people like Major Lisa Gilmor & City Council member Kathy Watanbe could so easily lie all the time and send out fake news about the people they are running against! It goes to show that scandalous people will go to any length to grab a city seat! Thank God Ex-City Manager Santana has been fired because Santa Clara hired her without seeing the destruction she did in Sunnyvale! Congrats To this man for fighting against evil & lies by taking a polygraph & proving his innocence! Fire Major Gilmore & get evil out of Santa Clara!