A teacher at a Riverside high school who was acquitted of rape in March has been reinstated, the Riverside Unified School District announced.

Lucas Brian Hampton, 34, was teaching world history, government and economics at Martin Luther King High when he was arrested on suspicion of rape in Riverside on May 4, 2020.

The school district then placed him on unpaid leave.

Hampton and a woman met on Bumble, an app that requires the woman to initiate contact for male-female meetups, according to court records. She said Hampton raped her at his home in 2018. She had no connection to the school or the district, Riverside police said.

Police decided they did not have enough evidence of a crime to submit the case to the District Attorney’s Office for consideration of charges, police said. Then on Feb. 13, 2020, the DA’s Office asked for the case to be submitted. The Police Department did so without having learned any new evidence, police officials said, and one count of rape was filed.

Hampton’s first trial, in 2024, resulted in a hung jury after only one day of deliberations. The second trial began in February 2025. He was acquitted on March 24.

The school district’s attorneys announced the end of Hampton’s suspension in a letter to him on June 23.

“After careful consideration and legal review, the district determined that Mr. Hampton must be reinstated, consistent with California Education Code,” district spokeswoman Elizabeth Pinney-Muglia said in an email to the Southern California News Group on July 8.

Pinney-Muglia, citing legally privileged discussions between the district and its attorney, declined to explain why reinstatement was not automatic.