A former Chapel Hill High School teacher was sentenced to nine to 16 years in prison Monday after pleading guilty to six felony sex charges involving a former student, ending a criminal case that stretched back to his 2023 arrest. David Orion Bennett, 44, of Carrboro admitted to attempted statutory rape, two counts of sexual activity with a student by a teacher, two counts of indecent liberties with a child, and indecent liberties with a student. Court records say the abuse spanned nearly three years, from February 2015 through December 2017.
Superior Court Judge Todd Burke handed down the sentence Monday, according to The News & Observer. As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors dismissed two additional felony charges of statutory sexual offense of a person 15 years old or younger, and Bennett must now register as a sex offender. Had he been convicted on all original charges, he could have faced more than 64 years behind bars, the paper reported. A jury trial had been scheduled to begin within days of the plea before the case was resolved instead through the agreement.
A Decade in the Classroom Before Removal
Bennett taught at Chapel Hill High School from August 2006 until he resigned on May 5, 2017, per the same account. School records show the district moved to pull him from the classroom well before that resignation: he was placed on paid suspension on Dec. 21, 2016, while Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools investigated possible demotion or dismissal, then hit with a three-day unpaid suspension on Jan. 18, 2017. He was placed on paid suspension again on April 7, 2017, shortly before he left the district for good.
Bennett was not arrested until August 2023, years after his resignation, and was held at the Orange County Detention Center while awaiting transfer to state prison following Monday's sentencing. In a statement, Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools said it cooperated fully with the criminal investigation, adding that the district does not tolerate sexual harassment or assault in its schools.
Defense Sought Victim's Mental Health Records
Bennett's defense attorney, Amos Tyndall, argued in court filings that the victim has a long history of mental illness. Tyndall had filed a motion on Sept. 9, 2026, seeking her confidential medical and mental-health records from Chapel Hill Pediatrics, Chapel Hill Pediatric Psychology, UNC Hospitals and Duke University Health System, the newspaper's report noted.
The victim's private attorney objected to that records request and called it a fishing expedition, according to the report. Bennett, who graduated from Wake Forest University and UNC-Chapel Hill, went on to earn a real estate license after leaving teaching and worked as a listing agent at Franklin Street Realty in Chapel Hill.
How North Carolina Law Treats Teacher-Student Cases
Under North Carolina law, when a teacher and student are present in the same school and the conduct occurs before the student ceases to be enrolled there, the offense is classified as a Class G felony, except when the two are lawfully married, according to North Carolina General Statutes. Separately, the North Carolina State Board of Education is the body responsible for imposing disciplinary sanctions when a professional educator is found to have engaged in misconduct, per the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.
Bennett's case is not an isolated one in the state. In April, a former McDowell County teacher, Jessica Patrick Finley, was sentenced to more than 28 years in prison after pleading guilty to child sex crimes, according to WLOS. Around the same time, another former North Carolina teacher was reported headed to prison after pleading guilty to multiple felony sex offenses involving a minor, per WYFF.
