High School Teacher Charged with Sex Crimes

On January 6, 2010 in Orange County, Christopher Ontiveros, a history teacher at Oxford Academy, pleaded not guilty to charges of sexual acts with a 17-year-old student in his class. Several explicit text messages have been discovered, implicating Mr. Ontiveros.

The history teacher started out by tutoring the young female student after school and then later counseling her on medical issues, and eventually, spent time with her outside of school. The student told police that Mr. Ontiveros kissed her once at the end of the last school year and once school resumed in September, the relationship grew more intimate. In one of his numerous texts, he wrote, “Maybe there’s many ways to prove myself, but one for sure is when I get to hold u and share this ecstatic love making, it’s real and binds us.”

The Orange County District Attorney has charged Mr. Ontiveros with three felony counts of sexual penetration by foreign object of a minor (California Penal Code Section 289), one felony count of oral copulation of a minor (California Penal Code Section 288a), one felony count of distributing harmful sexual material to a minor, one felony count of contacting a child with intent to commit sexual penetration, and one misdemeanor count of sexual battery. If convicted, Mr. Ontiveros faces a maximum sentence of six years in state prison.