A former dean at a St. Louis-area university who had been accused last fall of tampering with student files during her previous job at St. Charles Community College has had the charge against her permanently dismissed, according to her legal counsel.
Nicole Nunn-Faron was dean of the College of Education at Harris-Stowe State University when she was charged in August 2024 with one misdemeanor count of tampering with computer data at St. Charles Community College when she was employed there.
The St. Charles County Prosecuting Attorney's Office now has dismissed the charges "with prejudice," meaning they can't be refiled, according to a Thursday press release from Justin Gelfand, a partner at Margulis Gelfand Diruzzo & Lambson in Clayton and legal counsel for Nunn-Faron.
A copy of the notice of dismissal provided by a representative for Nunn-Faron's legal counsel indicates it was filed Oct. 14 this year. The county prosecuting attorney's office couldn't immediately be reached late Thursday for comment, nor could representatives for St. Charles Community College.
Prior to joining Harris-Stowe in July 2024, Nunn-Faron had served as education department chair at St. Charles Community College from 2013 to 2024.
According to court documents, a St. Charles Community College faculty member in April 2024 had tried to access a shared folder, but found it was missing, KSDK previously reported. The college's IT department found that under Nunn-Faron's login, over 450 files had been deleted from the college's Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage. IT was able to recover the files with help from Microsoft, but Microsoft told the college that before the files were deleted, they had been copied to an external hard drive Some of the files included personal student information such as names, addresses and phone numbers, the college's police said, according to the court filings.
The college's police had said that during the investigation, they'd learned Nunn-Faron had asked an IT staff member for help moving the files to an external hard drive, KSDK reported last fall. The hard drive to which Nunn-Faron had moved the files was turned over to the college by her attorney in July 2024, court documents said.
Another of Nunn-Faron's attorneys, Sherrie Hall with Workers Rights Law Firm, at the time of the charges had said in an August 2024 statement to KSDK, in part: "The materials on the hard drive were placed there by a representative of St. Charles Community College’s IT department, not by Dr. Nunn-Faron. In addition, the files that were deleted were deleted by the same IT representative. We believe when the process is completed, Dr. Nunn-Faron will be exonerated."
Harris-Stowe in August 2024 had confirmed in a statement that in light of the charge, Nunn-Faron had been placed on a leave of absence pending an internal investigation. In September 2024, she was terminated from her post as dean of Harris-Stowe's College of Education, according to her current attorney's press release Thursday.
The "public nature" of the criminal allegations "effectively halted her career," Thursday's release from Nunn-Faron's legal team said. She has applied for 497 jobs since that time, according to the release.
In June 2024, weeks before Nunn-Faron initially was charged, she and six other women colleagues from St. Charles Community College who had filed a complaint with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission also filed a lawsuit alleging racial and gender discrimination. That lawsuit is ongoing.
"This dismissal is more than a legal victory. It is the first step toward reclaiming my life and the professional reputation that I built over decades," Nunn-Faron said Thursday in a statement. "Myself and many others spoke out against wrongdoing, and in return, my career was systematically targeted. The timeline of events shows a clear act of retaliation designed to silence us. Part of rebuilding my life will be advocating for other whistleblowers and for meaningful education reform to protect those who are targeted for speaking the truth."