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May 6, 2008 5:44 pm US/Pacific
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Teacher Charged With Molesting 5 Students
SANTA MONICA
A Santa Monica middle school teacher was charged Tuesday with allegedly molesting five female students.
Thomas Arthur Beltran, who taught at Lincoln Middle School for about 20 years, was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon on 14 felony counts.
Beltran, 60, is charged with eight counts of committing a lewd act on a child and three counts each of continuous sexual abuse and sexual penetration of a foreign object on a child under 14, Deputy District Attorney Robin Sax Katzenstein said.
Santa Monica police arrested Beltran Saturday after a 12-year-old student came forward to allege he repeatedly sexually assaulted her in the classroom.
Four other girls made similar allegations, according to investigators.
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 years.
He has been married for 35 years, and his only child, Jennifer, also became a middle school teacher in Northern California before dying of cancer four years ago at the age of 30, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Prosecutors asked that Beltran's bail be set at $3.3 million.
If convicted, Beltran faces up to life in prison, according to the District Attorney's Office.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)