The wife of a man convicted of entering the U.S. Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection and who has also labeled school board members “child molesters” has been appointed to a North East Independent School District sex-ed committee, KSAT reports.
Crystal Keen, a registered nurse, was appointed to NEISD’s School Health Advisory Council (SHAC), last month, generating concern from community members, according to an investigation by the TV station. SHAC is a non-voting entity comprised of people appointed by the NEISD’s board of trustees that guides the district on topics including student mental health, human sexuality and nutrition.
Keen is the spouse of Mathew Mazzocco, who served 45 days in prison after reaching a deal with federal prosecutors in which he pled guilty to “parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building.” The FBI raided the couple’s Stone Oak home after Mazzocco posted videos and pictures of himself at the insurrection on social media.
Mazzocco’s extreme political views were also on display after his release from federal custody in 2022, according to KSAT’s investigation.
Since leaving prison, he’s posted right-wing conspiracy theories to social media, including claims that school boards and teachers across the nation are pedophiles who use their access to campuses to sexually groom children, the station reports.
“These pedophiles are EVERYWHERE and they want to have sex with your children,” Mazzocco commented on a video of a North Carolina school board meeting, according to KSAT.
Some community members — most of whom asked KSAT to withhold their identities — expressed concerns that Mazzocco’s extremist beliefs could compromise Keen’s position on SHAC.
Indeed, Keen has been a frequent critic of the district, according to KSAT’s reporting. A public records request from the station yielded 156 pages of correspondence between Keen and NEISD staff since May of last year.
In an October 2022 email obtained by KSAT, Keen incorrectly claimed a person who criticized the district in an article published by the Current was an employee of the district and therefore violating SHAC bylaws.
The Current article — which concerned NEISD banning more books than any other U.S. school district — quoted Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. Caldwell-Stone called the NEISD ban a “malign campaign to create a moral panic around information young people want and need.”
“Is this the same Deborah Caldwell employed by NEISD?” Keen wrote in her email to the district.
Keen continued: “The books of concern have nothing to do with people belonging in our communities. It is more of a concern from parents not wanting their children under 18 years of age being exposed to certain things not aligned with their parenting choices in the school environment.”
In a follow-up email, NEISD Superintendent Sean Maika informed Keen that the Caldwell-Stone quoted in the article was not the person employed at NEISD.
Keen’s term on SHAC runs through 2025, KSAT reports.
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This article appears in Sep 6-19, 2023.
