Beaumont Teacher's Aide, District Sued For Alleged Sexual Harassment

BEAUMONT, CA—The Beaumont Unified School District Tuesday acknowledged the gravity of the allegations against a teacher's aide suspected of sending two students explicit images and repeatedly harassing them for sexual favors, saying an internal investigation was underway in the face of a lawsuit.

The two boys and their families filed a civil complaint in Riverside County Superior Court alleging infliction of emotional distress and negligence in connection with the alleged abuse. The suit names Michele Alejandra Carrillo and the school district as defendants.

"Student safety remains our top priority," according to a BUSD statement released to City News Service in response to the suit. "As such, we take these allegations extremely seriously and are carefully reviewing the facts and circumstances."

District officials declined to specifically address the allegations, or confirm whether Carrillo is still on the payroll at Beaumont High School.

She was arrested at the end of March on suspicion of contacting a minor to commit a felony and distributing pornography to a child. However, she posted bail and has not been criminally charged.

"Parents have a right to send their children to school confident that they will be educated, not molested," the mother of one of the victims said in a statement. "There have been other instances in Beaumont High School where a female teacher sexually abused male students. This school and the district should have been on high alert for this type of behavior, and they were not."

According to the plaintiffs, Carrillo blatantly flirted with the two boys, identified only as "BHJ" and "BMJ," touched them intimately, asked them to make pornography and sent them "obscene videos of her naked and performing sexual acts."

The mother of the other boy said the school and district "failed in their most important responsibility -- educating children in a safe environment."

"The people responsible for this failure and the horrific consequences need to be held accountable," she said.

Attorney Saul Wolf, representing both teenagers, said there were numerous "red flags" that the district and school administrators ignored.

"These included interacting with male students on social media and texts, placing herself physically close to male students to touch them, hugging them and playing with their hair, making sexual comments about male students' appearance, trying to remove male students from BUSD campuses and take them to lunch and to their homes," he said.

The plaintiffs allege the defendant engaged in a pattern of lewd behavior that was obvious long before she harassed BHJ and BMJ, but there were no repercussions.

Carrillo liked to call BHJ her "favorite white boy," and the suit further alleged that between January and March of this year, she focused an inordinate amount of attention on him.

In the case of BMJ, the alleged harassment began in the fall of 2022 and continued into the first half of 2024, according to the court filing.

"Carrillo sent a video of herself in a school bathroom, where she proceeded to take off her top and expose her bare breasts," the narrative said. "She sent BMJ a total of four to five videos, including videos of her masturbating and one of her having sex."

The plaintiffs alleged the youths suffered irreparable harm. They're seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

No court hearings have been set yet in the matter.