Click here for update on Nielson being acquitted, according to his defense attorney.
I'd once contemplated rounding up all the recent hit-and-run or distracted-driver fatalities, but these keep taking all of my time: teachers getting arrested for diddling, touching or otherwise acting inappropriately around students or other children.
Authorities just announced the second arrest in two day of a Santa Ana high school teacher, the latest being dance instructor John Juul Nielson of Orange County High School of the Arts–a.k.a. OC's Glee campus.
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According to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA), Nielson, 53, of Cerritos, is accused of grooming a 15-year-old female student by sending her sexual text messages that also revealed details about his personal life and past and current relationships. These messages, which the OCDA claims were exchanged from Oct. 15, 2011, through Jan. 11, included “multiple sexually
inappropriate conversations, including asking her for an 'exclusive'
dating relationship.”
School officials became suspicious of Nielson's relationship with the girl and contacted the Santa Ana Police Department, which conducted an investigation that resulted in the dance instructor's arrest earlier today.
The OCDA has charged him with one misdemeanor count of child annoyance
that could have him practicing his steps in a jail cell for up to a year with a conviction. He would also face lifetime sex
offender registration, which would just about wipe out his career teaching kids and also keep him out of county and city parks that have enacted sex offender bans.
Nielson was being held in lieu of $15,000 bail at last word pending arraignment at a later date. By then, authorities could have additional victims as those who believe the teacher preyed on them are asked to contact Santa Ana Police Detective Ed Zaragoza at 714.245.8351 or Supervising District Attorney Investigator Carl Waddell at 714.834.7538.
Authorities, of course, issued a similar call yesterday regarding a biology teacher and wrestling coach at Godinez Fundamental High School in Santa Ana . . .
. . . Not be confused with the English teacher at El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim Hills . . .
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.