Fired substitute teacher posed as parent to mail threats to California school, feds say
A former substitute teacher has been charged after he was accused of mailing threatening letters to a California elementary school, federal prosecutors say.
Lester Dale Lee, 69, of Oakland, was charged with mailing threatening communications and false information and hoaxes, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California said in a Feb. 28 news release.
Neither an attorney for Lee nor a representative for the San Lorenzo Unified School District immediately responded to McClatchy News’ request for comment on March 3.
Lee is accused of mailing three “threatening letters to Dayton Elementary School” in San Leandro in May 2023, prosecutors said.
The school first received a letter addressed to one of its fifth grade teachers on May 3, officials said in a criminal complaint.
In the letter, Lee posed as a parent, called out students in the teacher’s classroom using a racial slur and threatened to shoot her and the students if they were not removed from the class, the complaint shows.
Then, a little more than two weeks later, the school received another letter, but this time it was addressed to the principal, prosecutors said.
Inside was a white substance that the principal thought to be baking powder, used by the sender to “scare her or provoke some kind of reaction,” officials said.
The school received a third letter the next day, May 19, that was again addressed to the same fifth grade teacher, prosecutors said.
Again, Lee posed as a parent and called the students a racial slur, officials said. He threatened to shoot the teacher and the students if they were not removed from the class because he wanted “them all dead,” officials said.
“All three letters were sent in similar envelopes bearing the same typewritten address label,” prosecutors said.
Lee is accused of sending two more letters addressed to the district’s director of elementary education, officials said. Those letters, however, did not include racial slurs or threats.
Instead, they focused on “dangerous and unsafe conditions” at Dayton Elementary School, placing blame on the principal, according to officials.
Through investigation, officials said they identified Lee as the sender of the five letters.
“Lee had worked through a staffing agency as a substitute teacher at numerous school sites within the San Lorenzo Unified School District during the 2022 to 2023 school year, including at Dayton Elementary School,” prosecutors said.
Investigators learned Lee previously had “conflicts with Black students during many of these prior assignments,” including incidents at Dayton Elementary School, according to officials.
Following one incident at the elementary school with a student from a fifth grade class in April 2023, the principal informed Lee he was no longer welcome at her school or any in the district, officials said.
Subsequently, the staffing agency fired Lee, officials said.
Officials said they tracked a number of records, including credit card transactions, that placed Lee in the same shopping center as the Alameda Main Post Office during the time the letters were mailed.
Additionally, while serving a search warrant at Lee’s home, investigators found “numerous items” that showed Lee was responsible for sending all five letters, according to officials.
In an interview with investigators, Lee admitted to sending the fifth letter to the district but denied sending the fourth, officials said.
Lee is scheduled to appear in court March 28, prosecutors said.
San Leandro is about a 20-mile drive southeast from San Francisco.
This story was originally published March 3, 2025 at 4:11 PM with the headline "Fired substitute teacher posed as parent to mail threats to California school, feds say."
