Last updated Jan. 18 at 1:03 p.m.
Former Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton was arrested Saturday on charges of cruelty to children and aggravated assault.
According to reporting from Atlanta-area publication Decaturish, Horton was booked in the DeKalb County Jail in Georgia at 1:38 p.m. on counts of child cruelty in the third degree and aggravated assault involving strangulation.
Horton served as superintendent of DeKalb County Schools from 2023 to 2025, before which he was District 65’s superintendent beginning in 2020.
In an email to The Daily, a spokesperson for DeKalb County School District said the arrest “stems from an alleged incident not related to the school district.”
“As this is an active legal matter with law enforcement, the district has no further information to share and will not be making additional statements,” the spokesperson wrote. “The safety and well-being of our students and staff remain our highest priority.”
Horton, along with three others, was indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois on Oct. 9. Horton was charged with 17 counts of embezzlement, wire fraud and tax fraud, related to activities during his leadership of District 65. Following this, the DeKalb County Board of Education accepted Horton’s resignation on Oct. 15.
Horton pleaded not guilty to all charges in Illinois later that month. His next court appearance for the case is scheduled for Feb. 4.
In a Sunday email to The Daily, Terence Campbell (Pritzker ’95), Horton’s attorney, wrote Saturday’s arrest stemmed from “a personal matter between husband and wife” and that Horton’s wife “does not want charges pursued.”
“Dr. Horton and his wife got into an argument at their home yesterday, and he was arrested as a result,” Campbell wrote. “Because headlines can be misleading, everyone should know first and foremost that this incident had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with their children and no child was involved in the argument in any way, other than the mere fact that they were at home when it occurred.”
A District 65 spokesperson did not respond to The Daily’s request for comment on Horton’s arrest.
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