Mayor of Texas town accused of assaulting pregnant city employee in Fort Worth
The Texas Rangers are investigating allegations that the mayor of a South Texas city assaulted a city employee outside the Omni Fort Worth hotel late last year, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Magnolia Mayor Matthew Dantzer was arrested Tuesday on a Tarrant County warrant on a charge of felony assault of a pregnant woman, Click2Houston reported.
Dantzer is accused of sexually assaulting Magnolia City Secretary Christian Gable in October of last year, when the two attended the Texas Municipal League’s annual conference in Fort Worth, according to a federal lawsuit filed by Gable.
Magnolia is in Montgomery County about 45 miles northwest of Houston. Dantzer was booked at the Montgomery County Jail on Tuesday.
Dantzer exhibited a pattern of sexually-charged behavior toward Gable for multiple years before the 2025 incident, according to Gable’s lawsuit.
At the start of her employment with the city in 2021, Gable would return to her family’s home for lunch. When Dantzer “caught on” to this routine, he began to show up uninvited to the home and wait for her inside, the lawsuit states. The visits initially consisted of small talk, but later escalated to Dantzer cornering Gable in areas of her own home, she said.
That behavior prompted Gable to stop going home for lunch altogether, according to the suit.
The mayor would also often introduce Gable to City Hall guests as the “city sexetary” or “my sexetary,” according to the lawsuit.
Dantzer, Gable, city human resources director Kristy Powell and city administrator Chris Whittaker attended the municipal league conference together. Gable was five months pregnant at the time, according to the lawsuit.
After dinner on the night of Oct. 29, Dantzer offered to walk Gable back to the hotel while the other city employees continued with their night out. Gable accepted, but because of her experiences with Dantzer, texted her then-boyfriend as a precaution, telling him that she was going to walk back with Dantzer, the lawsuit states.
Halfway between the restaurant and hotel, Dantzer asked Gable whether she was wearing pajama pants, according to the suit. Gable said the pants weren’t pajamas, but appeared loose because she needed them to accommodate her pregnancy. Dantzer responded by telling her that the pants would be “easy to pull down” once they “got past the bump” and continually tried to pull her pants down as they walked to the hotel, the suit states.
When the two arrived at the hotel, Dantzer asked Gable whether her boyfriend “knows how to handle” her because she is “crazy,” attorneys wrote in the lawsuit. When Gable jokingly replied “he’s aware,” Dantzer allegedly grabbed her throat and pinned her against a column, saying “you need to tell him to do it like this.”
Gable yelled out and managed to push Dantzer off of her before returning to her hotel room, according to the lawsuit.
The next morning, Gable reported the assault to Powell, who informed Whittaker of it as well. Whittaker encouraged Powell to report the assault in writing and Gable to report the incident to law enforcement. Powell submitted her report to Whittaker on Nov. 4, and Gable did the same on the following day.
As a result, Dantzer and other employees with whom he had a close relationship began to create an increasingly hostile working environment for Gable and Powell, who has since also sued Dantzer, according to the two women’s lawsuits.
Powell’s lawsuit states she faced retaliation from Dantzer and others after reporting the incident involving Gable and similar incidents in the past.
“Mr. Dantzer maintains his innocence and looks forward to the opportunity to defend himself in the appropriate legal process. Mr. Dantzer remains dedicated to faithfully serving the citizens of the city of Magnolia,” Conroe attorney Douglas W. Atkinson said in a statement to the Houston Chronicle.
