Baritone Samuel Schultz, who was sexually assaulted by famed countertenor David Daniels in 2010. Daniels pleaded responsible on Friday in a Houston courtroom.

Jamie Schultz/Courtesy of the artist

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Jamie Schultz/Courtesy of the artist

Baritone Samuel Schultz, who was sexually assaulted by famed countertenor David Daniels in 2010. Daniels pleaded responsible on Friday in a Houston courtroom.

Jamie Schultz/Courtesy of the artist

Editor’s be aware: This report consists of accounts of sexual abuse.

When Samuel Schultz walked right into a courthouse in Houston, Texas, final Friday morning, he anticipated that he could be testifying in opposition to David Daniels — a person as soon as revered by the opera world as one in all its best singers — and Daniels’ husband, Scott Walters.

Five years ago this month, Schultz had come ahead to accuse Daniels and Walters of drugging and raping him in 2010, when he was a graduate scholar at Rice University. After assembly by way of a mutual pal at a celebration following one in all Daniels’ performances at Houston Grand Opera, the couple invited Schultz, who can be an opera singer, again to the house the place they had been staying.

Schultz, a baritone singer who’s now 36, had been trying ahead to networking with Daniels, a famous countertenor who then repeatedly carried out on most of the world’s prime levels. At the house, Schultz unknowingly took a spiked drink from the couple, blacked out, and was sexually assaulted.

In the years since Schultz made his accusations public, Daniels, 57, and Walters, 40, who had been married by the then-Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg in 2014, had persistently proclaimed their innocence. In a surprising last-minute flip, nonetheless, with a jury already seated and with the trial nearly to start out, Daniels and Walters as an alternative admitted their guilt. Both males pleaded responsible to having sexually assaulted an grownup, which is a second-degree felony.

By making a plea deal, the 2 males prevented the extra critical cost of aggravated sexual assault and potential jail time. Instead, they every face eight years of probation, lifetime necessities to register as intercourse offenders, and an order to chorus from contact with Schultz. (The case is being transferred from Texas, the place the assault occurred, to Georgia, the place Daniels and Walters dwell.) Daniels’ and Walters’ lawyer, Matt Hennessy, didn’t reply to NPR’s request for remark.

In an interview with NPR Monday, Schultz maintains that the protection had tried to exhaust him into giving up since he first got here ahead. “It has been 13 years since I first experienced this trauma,” he says, “and the last five years have been way more difficult than I could have imagined. A large part of that is the delay tactics the defense used to try to exhaust me, to try to make me give up. And we see people who can’t beat the truth use delay tactics to further malign the people they’ve abused.”

Schultz was maybe probably the most public accuser in opposition to Daniels, however not the one one. In 2020, the singer was fired by the University of Michigan from his tenured place following a number of allegations of sexual misconduct. A lawsuit between former UM scholar Andrew Lipian and the college, by which Lipian accused Daniels of sexually harassing and assaulting him, was settled in May.

The pandemic accounted for among the trial delays in Houston, however Schultz maintains that the five-year hole between his accusations and the day the 2 males pleaded in court docket created additional trauma. “I’ve been accused of lying,” Schultz observes, noting that a number of highly effective former colleagues of Daniels publicly defended the countertenor. “When I first came forward, I was accused of taking advantage of the MeToo movement. Of course I took advantage of the MeToo movement! That’s why the MeToo movement exists — for survivors to finally claim power that they’ve been denied.”

“The reality is these defendants admitted their guilt in court on Friday after spending the last five years lying about their innocence,” Schultz continues. “In a sense, I’ve been the one on public trial. I’ve been the one expected to cope with the burden of publicly calling out dangerous people. I never imagined they would admit their guilt. And I was shocked when at the ninth minute of the 11th hour, when they were confronted with the overwhelming evidence the state was about to present, including my testimony, they accepted a plea agreement.”

Schultz says that listening to Daniels and Walters plead responsible created “emotional whiplash” for him. “David Daniels was the first to plead,” he remembers. “After he pleaded guilty, the judge said something to the effect of ‘You’re pleading guilty because you are guilty?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘There’s no other reason you’re pleading guilty?’ ‘No.’ Hearing that full and complete admission of guilt, with no qualification, with no asterisk, was overwhelmingly powerful.”

Moving ahead, Schultz says, he plans to make use of his expertise to proceed to be an advocate. After making his accusations in opposition to Daniels and Walters, he briefly served as an official within the American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA), the union that represents opera performers, however resigned after he accused the union of making an attempt to create a “sweetheart deal” with star singer Placido Domingo, who has been accused of sexual misconduct by 20 ladies. The union had carried out an investigation into Domingo, who walked away from a deliberate $500,000 settlement with AGMA.

“We have systems within institutions that are based on centuries of tradition,” Schultz says emphatically. “As a result, we accept certain norms — the sweeping under the rug of the powerful’s sometimes egregious behavior. I would hope that within conservatories, young artist programs, universities, and public institutions, we start to examine processes we’ve accepted as normal. Let’s get back to the basics of how we recognize human dignity despite status, despite fame, and despite money. I know that’s going to take a long time, but I hope this is a big nudge to engage in that work.”

Schultz says that regardless of the ache of the previous a number of years, he is tried to maintain different victims entrance of thoughts “as an opportunity to speak for those who haven’t felt that they have a voice, to use the experience I’ve endured to help bring about an understanding and empathy — and maybe even some systemic changes, so this road is a little bit easier for those who come behind me.”