Teacher Charged with Sexually Molesting Five Female Students

Teacher Charged with Sexually
Molesting Five Female Students

May 6, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts: Joe Scott, Director of Communications
Sandi Gibbons, Public Information Officer
Jane Robison, News Secretary
(213) 974-3525

LOS ANGELES – A Santa Monica middle school teacher was charged today with multiple counts of sexually molesting five female students, the District Attorney’s office announced.

Thomas Arthur Beltran, 60 (dob 9-3-47), is scheduled to be arraigned after 1:30 p.m. at the Airport Court, Dept. 145. He is charged in case No. SA 067646 with 14 counts, including eight counts of lewd act on a child, three counts of continuous sexual abuse and three counts of sexual penetration of a foreign object on a child under 14, said Deputy District Attorney Robin Sax Katzenstein of the Sex Crimes Division. Katzenstein, who has been assigned to prosecute the case, will request bail be set at $3.3 million.

Santa Monica Police arrested Beltran Saturday, a day after they said a 12-year-old female Lincoln Middle School student reported the alleged abuse to her parents.

Four additional girls made similar allegations, investigators said. One of the alleged victims told authorities she had been molested for more than a year, police said.

Beltran, a seventh-grade teacher of English as a second language, has been with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District for 30 year. He has been teaching at Lincoln for about 20 years.

If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

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