California’s attorney general is investigating a school district over its handling of Rosemead High sex abuse claims

Three former students return to Rosemead High, in Southern California. All have filed suit claiming they faced sexual harassment and abuse as students. 

The California attorney general is investigating a Southern California school district over whether it properly handled claims of educator sexual abuse and misconduct, records reviewed by B-17 show.

B-17 was the first to obtain evidence of a pattern of abuse at Rosemead High, overseen by the El Monte Union High School District, for a series revealing widespread complaints of sexual misconduct involving more than 20 different educators that persisted from the 1980s through last year. In several cases, employees who were alerted to inappropriate relationships between colleagues and students failed to report them to child protective services despite being mandated to do so under state law.

A document reviewed by B-17 shows that the scope of the state’s investigation includes district “policies relating to sexual abuse, assault, and harassment, as well as its compliance with laws and regulations concerning mandated reporting of suspected child abuse, sexual abuse, assault, harassment, and related hiring and training requirements.” Multiple people familiar with the investigation, whom B-17 is not naming because they were directed not to discuss it, described the probe as focused in part on whether Rosemead administrators properly handled allegations of educator abuse that spanned decades.

Investigating a local school district is a rare step for the top law enforcement office in the state. The only investigation the attorney general has made public related to sexual abuse by educators involved another Southern California district, Redlands Unified, which concluded earlier this year when the office found that the district had “systemically violated laws in place to protect against and address complaints related to sexual assault, harassment, and abuse.” Redlands agreed to a judgment in June that subjects the district to five years of state oversight.

People familiar with the El Monte investigation say it is being led by a division of the attorney general’s office called the Bureau of Children’s Justice, which was created in 2015 while Kamala Harris was attorney general. A spokesperson for Attorney General Rob Bonta declined to comment.

B-17 previously identified numerous instances where tips from faculty, students, parents, and community members led to cursory investigations by Rosemead administrators and district officials, often concluding with a teacher being allowed to return to the classroom — where, records show, fresh abuse allegations emerged. In a deposition last year, the district’s head of human resources, Robin Torres, said of the district’s investigation of one teacher’s relationship with a student, “it appears that there wasn’t follow-through.” After reviewing district records related to sexual harassment complaints from multiple students about another teacher, Torres said, “I would have expected to find additional information on these allegations.”

Those familiar with the state’s investigation said it is in the preliminary stages and remains ongoing. District Superintendent Edward Zuniga did not comment on the investigation. “The health and safety of our students is our top priority,” he said by email. “El Monte Union does not tolerate any behavior that undermines those values, and we take swift and decisive action if we suspect student safety is being compromised in any way.”

An explosion of sexual abuse allegations at Rosemead High has sparked a state investigation.

In an August 21 letter that Zuniga sent to staff and the district’s board of trustees, he disclosed the attorney general’s investigation and instructed employees to refrain from discussing the case with anyone outside the district. The letter directs staff to preserve any documents “potentially relevant to the investigation,” including memos, emails, voicemails, diaries, text messages, and meeting minutes.

Four lawsuits and counting

In May, lawyer Michael Carrillo filed a lawsuit on behalf of three former Rosemead High students who claim that school officials have created a “toxic” culture on campus where “sexual abuse by educators is rampant.” During a press conference announcing the suit, Carrillo called on the Bureau of Children’s Justice and the US Department of Education to investigate what he described as a “systemic failure” to report child abuse within the district. Carrillo declined to comment.

Three other lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by former educators have been filed against the El Monte district in recent months. In preliminary responses, lawyers for the district have denied most of the claims, while moving to have other claims dismissed on procedural grounds. In the first case filed by Carrillo, lawyers for the district argued that because the abuse allegations involved three different educators, the claims should be separated; a superior court judge ordered the plaintiffs to amend their complaint.

In a case naming the district and special education teacher Edwin Reyes-Villegas, a former Rosemead student identified as a Jane Doe alleges that Reyes-Villegas sexually harassed and molested her when she was 17. According to the complaint — filed by lawyers at the Manly, Stewart & Finaldi law firm, which also represented 37 plaintiffs who filed sexual abuse claims against the Redlands district, resulting in settlements totaling more than $45 million — the girl, who has autism, was “especially vulnerable” to abuse by Reyes-Villegas. The complaint says that abuse occurred during and after school and included the exchange of “sexually laden communications.”

Her attorney, Jenny Louro, said she intends to file subpoenas with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing to see whether the district notified state authorities after placing Reyes Villegas on paid leave a year ago. Reyes Villegas did not respond to requests for comment; records show his credential remains intact.

In another case filed by the same firm, a trio of former students who trained to join Rosemead High’s championship wrestling team sued the El Monte district and their former coach, Herbert Ortiznmonroy. The lawsuit claims that Ortizmonroy repeatedly molested the boys, one of whom joined the Rosemead team, and that district administrators failed to supervise him and enabled “a culture of sexual abuse and harassment that discouraged reporting.” Ortizmonroy, who also went by Coach Ortiz at Rosemead, was sentenced to prison in 2013 after he pleaded no contest to charges of oral copulation of a minor and committing a lewd act on a child; he remains incarcerated and did not respond to a request for comment.

An additional case that Carrillo filed in June on behalf of nine other plaintiffs, all Jane Does, alleges that “the improper handling of sexual abuse, molestation, and harassment allegations was, and is, a systemic issue” in the El Monte district.

One former Rosemead teacher named in the case, Alex Rai, had his credential revoked over “misconduct” earlier this year, records show. Rai declined to comment.

Meanwhile, Dominique Boubion, a lawyer who works with Carrillo, told B-17 that she is preparing to file another lawsuit against the El Monte district soon. That would bring the total number of active sexual abuse cases against the district to five.