LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — A Clark County School District trustee’s account appears to have liked several pornographic videos. She says her account was hacked.
Last week, 8 News Now found graphic content connected to the Twitter account of board trustee Linda Cavazos and brought it to her attention.
On Wednesday, Cavazos declined an interview after 8 News Now asked her about the liked content. She later appears to have deactivated her Twitter account. However, when Cavazos’ account was active Wednesday morning the liked pornographic material was still visible.
8 News Now found that dating back to February, Cavazos’ account had liked pornographic content. The “liked” tweets are on the account along with school-related tweets.
Cavazos initially made her account private after speaking with 8 News Now over the phone Wednesday afternoon before deactivating it.
In a statement on Friday, the CCSD said, “Trustee’s personal social media accounts are solely the responsibility of the trustee and must include disclaimers to distinguish them from official CCSD communications.”
The district also linked to this board policy in its email.
Another board member whose Twitter account has come under fire is trustee Katie Williams. CCSD teacher Brett Gilman is suing the district as a result of a Twitter spat with Williams.
According to the lawsuit, Gilman accuses the district of violating his first and fourteenth amendment rights. In November 2020, Gilman got into a Twitter spat with Williams. The lawsuit alleges, Williams responded to Gilman, “What hurts more @BrettD.Gilman? The fact that I won? Or the fact that I am your new boss?” Gilman responded she is not his boss.
The lawsuit also stated Gilman was removed from the classroom in 2021 shortly after Williams was sworn in. The district advised him he was under investigation due to his social media postings.
In June of 2021, Williams was called out by then-CCSD Board President Irene Cepeda for her tweets.
“When we break our trustee policies, we erode the work of the board. We erode public trust,” Cepeda said. “Just a plea to be more professional. Just use decorum when you’re on social media.”
Cavazos shared with us screenshots of her notifying Twitter of the issues. While she declined an interview, Cavazos sent us a statement:
“The hack of my account can possibly be traced to late January when an invite supposedly from a CCSD student regarding sports was sent to me via direct mail. Unfortunately, the link turned out to be spam, and after that, my account was compromised, as were several others belonging to friends. I reported and blocked as many of the offensive posts as possible, but it was evident that these accounts were being sent by bots. I have continued reporting and blocking, but have today temporarily deactivated my Twitter account until the security issues can be resolved. I have been informed today by Channel 8 that they reached out to the District for comment and received a statement in return, but unfortunately, I was never informed by the District.“
Regarding Katie Williams, the district says it does not comment on pending litigation.
