The math teacher at a Fullerton junior high school arrested in February after a police investigation was charged today with sexually assaulting and sending sexual messages to three male students ages of 13 and 15, prosecutors announced.
Melissa Nicole Lindgren, 28, of La Mirada, is scheduled to be arraigned in Fullerton Wednesday morning on charges that could send her to state prison for 16 years and four months.
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Melissa Lindgren's Alleged Victim Among Boys with Lewd Photos on Cell Phones: Police
Currently out of custody on $100,000 bail, Lindgren is charged with five felony counts of lewd acts on a child, two felony counts of lewd acts on a child under 14, three felony counts of distributing pornography to a minor, and she faces a sentencing enhancement allegation for lewd acts on multiple children.
The math teacher is accused of meeting the boys through Nicholas Junior High School during the 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 school years, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) that accuses Lindgren of sending sexual text and smartphone messages to each minor child.
Lindgren allegedly molested one boy in a classroom on campus, an incident that involved sexual touching and kissing, the OCDA said. She is also accused of molesting a second boy by sexually touching him while in a classroom. Lindgren allegedly met the third boy in a car off campus, where he was molested by sexual touching, prosecutors say.
One boy reported being assaulted sexually, which led to the Fullerton Police Department probe that resulted in Lindgren's Feb. 21 arrest.
Melissa Lindgren, Junior High Teacher, Accused of Sexual Behavior with Up to 2 Boy Students
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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.