Another teacher has been arrested on charges of sexual molestation of his students in Santa Monica, California. This time there's a hitch; the accused was also investigated for the same activities two years ago.
A longtime middle school teacher was charged Tuesday with sexually molesting five female students, and a prosecutor told a court there was videotape evidence.
Thomas Arthur Beltran, 60, of Santa Monica, pleaded not guilty to 14 counts during his arraignment in Superior Court. Bail was set at $3.3 million and he remained jailed.
Police arrested Beltran on Saturday after a 12-year-old girl from Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica reported the alleged abuse to her parents. The investigation led to four other girls.
Beltran, who teaches English as a second language, has been with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District for 30 years, including 20 years at Lincoln.
Police also stated that they had found tapes allegedly made by Beltran which show him in the act with some of his victims. According to a statement made by prosecutors, "virtually every female student that has come into contact with the defendant has had some sort of inappropriate touching."
In 2006, Beltran was also under investigation for sexual molestation of some of his students, but was not charged.
Beltran, who has worked at Lincoln Middle School as a seventh-grade English teacher and is married, was arrested Saturday and was placed in jail pending a $1.1 million bond, which has been raised to $3.3 million. He has no previous criminal record. If convicted on charges which include committing a lewd act on a child, continuous sexual abuse and sexual penetration of a foreign object on a child under 14, Beltran could face life imprisonment.
What in the world are these morons thinking going after underage girls and throwing away their lives because they can't keep their pants zipped up when around children?
Once and Always, an American Fighting Man
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