Women say S.F. driving teacher groped, harassed them as teens
A popular driving instructor harassed and groped several underage San Francisco schoolgirls over a number of years, making sexual comments, forcing kisses on many, and in some cases taking them to secluded places before touching them inappropriately, according to 10 women who shared their allegations with The Chronicle.
Nelson Graves, the 61-yearold owner of Native Nellie’s Driving School, touched or rubbed their thighs as they drove, the women said. He commented repeatedly on their physical appearance and described the sexual activities of other teens, they said. Some said he nuzzled, licked and kissed their necks and ears.
Until recently, the women said, each believed she was alone in her experience with Graves, a San Leandro resident often referred to clients through private prep school circles. As the #MeToo movement against sexual misconduct exploded last fall, the women, now in their 20s, found each other through social media.
“No one said anything (earlier) because we all felt it was our own problem,” said Tali Missirlian, 24.
Several of the women have provided statements to San Francisco police, and department officials confirmed there is an open investigation into the allegations, which include incidents the women said occurred from 2006 through 2012.
Graves admitted in interviews that he had engaged in sexual banter with girls he taught, and said he was sorry if some believed he was “a little over-friendly, overzealous” with them. He denied any inappropriate touching.
“That’s disgusting. I did not do that to any of the girls,” he said. “Oh, Lord, no. No, I would not have my hand on the inner thigh of a girl.
“That’s terrible,” he said. “That’s wrong.”
Graves has continued teaching since 2012 but has been on hiatus from his business since having hip surgery in November. He also said that for the past five years, his fiancee has accompanied him during lessons.
San Francisco police Officer Robert Rueca confirmed there is an open investigation into the alleged incidents reported regarding the driving instructor, but declined to discuss details and wouldn’t say whether any more recent students had made allegations. Under California law, a charge of misdemeanor touching of a minor must be prosecuted within one year of an incident, while a charge of felony sexual battery must be prosecuted within three years.
Graves said he has been contacted and interviewed by San Francisco police investigators.
“We are working on this,” said police Lt. Arran Pera.
In interviews with The Chronicle, 10 women who had attended various San Francisco high schools described having similar encounters with Graves. All said he used sexual language. Six said he had rested his hand on their upper and inner thighs while they drove. Several described more disturbing encounters. Five agreed to be identified by name.
The women, all minors at the times of their encounters, said Graves held a position of authority over them as they sought to fulfill the state requirement that they receive six hours of behind-the-wheel instruction to qualify for a driver’s license.
“It’s teenage girls who can’t drive,” said Ellie Miller Hall, 28, another of Graves’ former students. “You’re put in a situation where you can’t leave.”
Miller Hall was a 17-yearold student at Convent of the Sacred Heart in 2006 when she began driving with Graves, she said. Her first lesson was uneventful. During the second lesson, they drove through Pacifica and then along Interstate 280, she said, before Graves had her pull into a rest stop near Hillsborough and walk up a wooded hill to observe “traffic patterns” on the freeway below. As the two walked back down the hill, she said, Graves pressed up against her from behind, putting his hands under her armpits and touching the sides of her breasts.
“That’s when he started making out with my ear, a big French kiss on my ear, sucking on my earlobe, his tongue in my ear, and then a kiss at the end,” Miller Hall said.
A phone call from a friend interrupted the encounter, she said. That evening, she told a family member that the driving instructor had been weird, she said, but withheld details. She said she had convinced herself that “it wasn’t a big deal” and never talked about it again. She had two additional lessons during which he didn’t repeat the behavior, she said.
Three years later, Missirlian’s family hired Graves to train the then 15-year-old sophomore at the Urban School of San Francisco. Graves rubbed her thigh as she drove and commented repeatedly on her beauty, Missirlian said. At one point, she said, he had her stop and stretch outside the car, while he put his hands on her arms and back. At the end of the lesson, she said, he spanked her bottom as he walked her to her front door.
“I never told anyone,” she said. It was her only lesson with Graves, she said.
In interviews with The Chronicle, Graves denied ever touching girls in a sexual way, saying he had taught 3,000 Bay Area students in his 23 years as an instructor and never intended to offend anyone. He acknowledged, though, that he could have made some of the young women uncomfortable by things he said.
He described one incident, during a lesson with a student who he said was a lesbian, in which he pointed to an attractive woman walking in front of the car.
“We could double-team her,” Graves said he told the student. “I looked at the girl’s face and I said, ‘Oh, I’m in trouble.’ I apologized to the parents, I returned their money and I said I was wrong.”
Graves said he would sometimes tap students on the leg or hands to acknowledge a good job performing a driving maneuver. He also said he had hugged students and kissed them on the cheek, often in front of parents, and described moments when students had hugged him.
He said he never took students to remote locations or lookouts or helped them stretch on breaks, and that he agreed to speak on the record without an attorney present because he is innocent of the allegations.
“The inappropriate language, yes,” he said. “The touching of any girls in any way, no.”
Graves said he loves teaching young people to drive and that he has students who “have called me back that have invited me to their weddings.”
For the past five years, Graves said, his fiancee has accompanied him during his lessons, and at times she has scolded him for making potentially offensive remarks, including telling girls they’re beautiful.
“Sometimes he does play with the language,” said the fiancee, Maria Love. But she said she had never seen Graves inappropriately touch a student.
After a Chronicle inquiry, the California Department of Motor Vehicles opened an investigation into Graves’ credentials. While Graves has a valid state license to operate his driving school, his teaching license expired in 2014, said DMV spokesman Marty Greenstein. Practicing without a teaching license is a misdemeanor.
Graves said he had submitted renewal paperwork for his teaching license in each of the past three years, but that the DMV hadn’t acknowledged receiving it. He said he’s working on the renewal now.
All driving instructors must pass a background check to receive a teaching license, which Graves did, according to the DMV. No complaints have been lodged against him, Greenstein said. The DMV would investigate if a complaint was filed, he said.
Graves started his career teaching for Apex Driving School, where he was a popular teacher, with no complaints filed against him, said owner Derrick Scott.
“People thought very highly of him as a teacher,” Scott said.
Graves often came highly recommended by students and parents in San Francisco’s tight-knit prep school community, the women said, adding he had a reputation as a funny, cool adult who often came to students’ volleyball or tennis games.
He liked to gossip, said Abby Fanlo, who took lessons from Graves in late 2009 and early 2010, when she was 15 and 16. She said he never touched her inappropriately but frequently steered the conservation to sexual topics, including talk about sex acts between girls and boys she knew.
“I would definitely classify it as harassment; he was a teacher, essentially,” said Fanlo, 24. “If a schoolteacher told me someone in my class was getting a blow job, he’d be fired.”
Katrina Allick, 24, said her experience with Graves in the spring of 2009 went beyond verbal harassment.
When Graves picked her up at her home in Mill Valley, she was wearing flip-flops, she said. “Oh, girl, you know how I feel about toes, you know I have a toe fetish,” she recounted Graves saying. “I thought he was just joking around, so I just laughed.”
As she drove, Allick said, Graves repeatedly put his hand on her thigh. At one point, she said, he told her he wanted to take his then-wife to a romantic lookout, and asked if she knew of one. She drove to a lookout near her home, she said, where Graves urged her to get out and walk with him. As they walked, he put his arm around her and kissed her on the cheek, telling her she was beautiful, Allick said.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “There’s no one out there.” She thought at the time it was “super creepy,” but said, “When you’re uncomfortable and young, you just laugh.”
During two more lessons with him, she said, she acted cold and unfriendly, rebuffing his jokes and his effort to kiss her hello.
She said that she didn’t tell anyone about his behavior until years later. Neither did Caroline Getz, 25, who said Graves spent one lesson talking about how the mother of a student she knew had tried to seduce him, sharing that the mom wore a short skirt with no underwear.
The accusations against Graves surprised Alison Engel of San Francisco, who hired him to instruct her daughter, Blythe, about two years ago when the girl was 16.
“That is so not the Nelson that we know,” said Engel, whose name was provided by Graves. “We’ve referred people to Nelson. Lots of (Blythe’s) friends have used Nelson at our recommendation.”
Blythe Engel, now 18, said she and Graves are “very good friends.”
“He is just hilarious,” she said. “He was very appropriate in all ways.”
The women who spoke to The Chronicle said they learned they were part of a larger group in October, after Miller Hall used Facebook to share her experience with Graves. Within hours, women in her social media circle began to respond and ultimately 25 women came forward with similar stories, the women said.
San Francisco police opened an investigation after several of the women sent a letter to four San Francisco private high schools, telling administrators of Graves’ behavior and requesting that the schools refrain from recommending him. University High administrators reported the allegations to authorities. Julia Russell Eells, University’s head of school, said the school had never recommended Graves to students.
“When we learned of these allegations, we contacted the local police and continue to encourage anyone who has been subjected to abuse to report it to the police,” Eells said.
Graves said he last gave a lesson in late November before having hip surgery. When he is recovered, he said, he plans to refrain from teaching for at least a couple of months while he gets “sensitivity training” related to “respecting young ladies.” He said he has spoken to his pastor about receiving this counseling.
“My rebuttal to all this is Nelson is getting some help and is making some changes,” Graves said.
He said he will teach female students in the future only if his fiancee is in the car and that he plans to resume teaching in March after another surgery.
“As you go through life, as a Christian man, there are things we have to face up to,” he said. “I feel completely remorseful. I want to apologize to all the girls that felt like I was a little over-friendly, overzealous in my teaching or my reaction to them.”
He realizes, he said, that “my reputation is on the line. The driving school is on the line.”
Many of the women who spoke out about Graves said they regret not doing so earlier, when they might have helped others. But, they said, they were young. They didn’t know what to do and shrugged off the behavior.
Now that she has broken her silence, Missirlian said she feels empowered.
“I just really want to get this guy out of the car,” she said.