A former teacher already convicted of inappropriately touching five girls at Rowland Elementary School in Rowland Heights now faces a possible 24 years in prison for molesting a girl at Rorimer Elementary School in La Puente in 2010.
Jose Martinez, who will turn 59 on Wednesday, pleaded no contest on April 26 to a lewd act upon a child and continuous sexual abuse, said Greg Risling, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
The former Rowland Heights resident returns to Pomona Superior Court on May 25 for sentencing. His lawyer couldn’t be reached for comment.
Both schools are part of the Rowland Unified School District.
In the Rowland Elementary School case, Martinez pleaded no contest to four felony counts of committing a lewd act upon a child and one misdemeanor count of child molesting and was sentenced in 2019 to five years in prison.
Less than a month later, in April, authorities found out about the Rorimer Elementary School molestation when a teenager and her mother called the Sheriff’s Department.
Deputies met the victim at the school, at 18750 E. Rorimer St., where she told them about the molestation at the campus by Martinez who was her first-grade teacher in 2010, sheriff’s Lt. Richard Ruiz said.
The DA’s Office then charged Martinez with three counts of lewd act upon a child, continuous sexual abuse of a minor and sex or sodomy with a child 10 years old or younger.
“The district takes all matters involving student safety very seriously,” it said in a Tuesday statement. “Inappropriate or unsafe behaviors by anyone in our schools will not be tolerated. …
“The crimes committed by Jose Martinez do not reflect the values or expectations of employees of the district,” the district said.
Martinez was being held without bail at Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles.
