UKIAH, CA., 11/3/25 – Ukiah High School’s journalism teacher was arrested Monday for allegedly inappropriate messages with a 17-year-old girl.
Matthew LaFever, a 37-year-old Hopland resident and publisher of the MendoFever website, is accused of asking a 17-year-old girl to send him inappropriate photos while also sending scantily clad photos of himself, Ukiah police said in a press release.
Investigators initially received a tip on Oct. 16 from someone who said that LaFever had allegedly made an inappropriate sexual comment toward her daughter. Detectives then learned that a different Ukiah High student had information about LaFever contacting minors on social media, according to police.
The 17-year-old girl said she spoke with LaFever on social media and informed him that she was a minor, but he allegedly continued to make sexually suggestive comments and asked her to send him inappropriate photos while taking scantily clad and inappropriate photos of himself, police said.
Detectives located LaFever at the Ukiah High campus and seized his cellphone and multiple laptops, but he declined to provide a comment to them.
Authorities were able to confirm the social media interaction with the 17-year-old along with evidence that LaFever was allegedly reaching out to numerous minors around Mendocino and Sonoma counties, often using variations of the screenname “Johhnyender” across different social media platforms, police said.
Ukiah police obtained a warrant for LaFever’s arrest on suspicion of knowingly annoying or molesting a minor, and he was taken into custody at his home at about 7 a.m. Monday. He was booked into Mendocino County Jail, and jail booking logs show that he posted a $10,000 bond and was released around noontime.
LaFever was not immediately available for comment on the arrest. The Ukiah Unified School District issued a statement saying the district placed him on administrative leave Oct. 16 when first notified of the allegations.
District superintendent Deb Kubin said, “The safety and well-being of our students are our highest priorities. We are cooperating fully with law enforcement and conducting our own internal investigation. We will continue to communicate with families as appropriate while respecting the privacy rights of all involved.”
School counselors will be at the campus this week to provide support for students, according to the district.
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What is wrong with these men?!? This happened in the Anderson Valley/Coast community as well with a popular, married, musician (Ryan Davis of Boonfire) being convicted of sexual misconduct with a young woman over 2 years beginning when she was 14. Freaking predatory and twisted! Can we please stop sexualizing children and let these predators get the jail time they deserve for their perversions?!
Agree wholeheartedly…
Produce the messages or whatever event you have…
I heard it was dick pics and his buttjole…you really want to see that?
People are gonna stop trusting schools on a boycott level any day now.
If you actually knew what is being taught to your kids in these schools you would have stopped trusting them long ago.
I humbly ask that mendovoice not censor comments or erase articles, (such as what happened recently with the planned parenthood funding article) especially concerning Matt Lefever. Let “the public” speak!
It’s Ironic that some of the last articles on Mendofever were about sexual assault cases and then, bam, the author falls victim to the same narrative he reports on…
‘The author falls victim…’? He’s a perpetrator not a victim.
*correction:
into the behavior patterns as his narrative….
I would like clarification. I’ve heard it both reported that Lafever was arrested on campus at UHS and that he was arrested at his home while on leave.
The investigation began on Oct. 16 and UHS reportedly placed him on leave after learning of the allegations. If true, wouldn’t this have given Lafever weeks to clean his hard drives, search histories and chat logs?
Which is it? Was he placed on leave Oct. 16 and arrested at his home, or was he arrested on campus? If he had been placed on leave and if UHS had been notified of the allegations on Oct 16, why would Lafever be on campus on Nov 3?
Hi! Thanks for reading The Mendocino Voice. I just double checked our communications with the Ukiah Police Department. According to UPD, a warrant was obtained for LaFever’s arrest on Nov. 3. That same day, detectives went to LaFever’s house and he was arrested.
This is confirmed in our article: “Ukiah police obtained a warrant for LaFever’s arrest on suspicion of knowingly annoying or molesting a minor, and he was taken into custody at his home at about 7 a.m. Monday. He was booked into Mendocino County Jail, and jail booking logs show that he posted a $10,000 bond and was released around noontime.”
Hadn’t seen much content from him lately on MendoFever. Figured he looked at that $10 I sent and thought it was as good as he was going to get, so he quit. He does write pretty well for the SF paper.
Looks like MendoFever has been taken off the web. RIP. I enjoyed some of the commentary.
I don’t know what other pictures they have but the one posted is hardly scantily clad, people walk around town with shorts and T-shirts on all the time and don’t get arrested. But his communicating privately with female pupils is definitely wrong!
He uploaded a porn video he made of himself and some lady not his wife
I was wondering what happened to MendoFever , I would usually have a ton of notifications. Lo and behold the news reporter/publisher made some news of his own! Well he’s done in Mendocino county and likely with his SFGate job. I didn’t know he was the journalism teacher at UHS . Well another pervert predator off the street! Adios asshole.
Hmm. So, gosh, I guess I missed the trial where he was found guilty and sentenced.
Oh, wait, that’s what we have public opinion for. Why waste time and money on a trial when we all “know” he is guilty.
Guilty until proven innocent seems to be the way. This will be totally devastating to his wife and kids (totally innocent in all of this) and severely impact their lives forever so let’s at least wait until he is actually charged before you find him guilty and ruin their lives along with his. Not condoning any activity against minors but also realize that the impact on others lives can be significant so be sure anything share you know firsthand is true- no hearsay
Thats one of the biggest downfalls of the internet and police logs.. the person is named and the charges made public before the judge sees the evidence (if there is any) and at this point the damage is done. And if its thrown out of court there is rarely any reporting to state the person was innocent because theres no excitement in that news. And to further this problem..its also true that the original report is rarely removed from the internet and thus remains available to anyone who does a search of the persons name. I had this happen when my landlady allowed an ex con to use my mailbox and he was wanted on suspicions of manufacturing drugs.. the sheriffs took me into custody at my home and picked him up on the road. The story had my name as a possible partner. charges were dropped and it took me 6 years of letter writing before the story was finally removed from the archives.. by then nobody would rent to me & most friends & family had stopped communicating. So If this guy is guilty then lop off his junk and feed it to him. If hes not then we should stand behind any efforts to scrub all mention of the accusations from existence.
Disgusting. Birds of a feather. You many of these creepy blies in power across the board in Mendocino County!!!
🤑🤮🤑🤮🤑🤮🤑🤮🤑🤮🤑🤮
Bullies not blies.
He always was a POS! Pedophile…. The school district knew, like always people covering up shit. Kudos to the young lady who came forward..
I don’t put any credence in accusations that lack a single specific incident, source or verifiable statement. This comment barely rises to the level of unsubstantiated rumor. I have no more confidence in the Mendo DA and Police than Stranger A. seems to have in the school district. I’ll wait until the evidence comes out in court before I decide on the charges against LaFever.
We need to stand up with the same urgency we feel for prosecution of the guilty for the removal of all mention of such incidents if the person is found to be innocent. Think of how massively damaging this could be if the person is actually found to be innocent.. The original reports are rarely removed from the internet and will likely come up with a simple search of the persons name for years beyond the date of publication (if not forever).. There must be an equally proportionate effort to remedy the damage caused by news reports of the initial incident when the accused turn out to be innocent. These kinds of sensitive matters should not be allowed to expose the name of the accused until a judge or jury determines a guilty verdict. Otherwise such accusations become a devistating tool of revenge for anyone wishing to destroy someones life.