Crime & Safety
Valley Teacher Who Was Focus of $14.7 Million Settlement Now Has New Accusers
The teacher is accused of sexually abusing students at a San Fernando Valley elementary school.
VAN NUYS, CA — Three years after Los Angeles Unified paid $14.7 million to resolve a lawsuit filed by seven former students of a Canoga Park elementary school teacher they said molested them, a consolidated suit involving still other former student accusers against the same teacher was ordered by a judge Wednesday to proceed to trial.
The teacher, Rene Tenas, previously pleaded no contest in 2018 to two felony counts of lewd act on a child and was sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to register as a sex offender for life. The criminal charges against Tenas stemmed from allegations he inappropriately touched six girls — ages 9 and 10 — on or between Aug. 1, 2016, and Jan. 31, 2017, at Hart Street Elementary School.
In the 2022 Los Angeles Superior Court settlement, the plaintiffs were 9 and 10 years old. They suffered "tremendous psychological damage as a result of the sexual abuse by their teacher," plaintiffs' attorney Luis Carrillo said at the time.
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On Wednesday, Van Nuys Superior Court Judge Wendy L. Wilcox denied an LAUSD motion to dismiss the claims of the multiple plaintiffs in the consolidated group of plaintiffs that were not part of the 2022 lawsuit.
According to the plaintiffs' attorneys' court papers involving the new plaintiffs, Tenas routinely isolated each plaintiff and other students, utilizing that seclusion to sexually assault them. His alleged practice of shielding students violated school and LAUSD policies implemented to protect students from being sexually assaulted by school staff, the plaintiffs' lawyers further stated in their pleadings.
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In their court papers, LAUSD attorneys cited various faults with the claims of the new plaintiffs, including the memory of one girl.
"Plaintiff's deposition testimony revealed that plaintiff does not remember one single incident of sexual abuse committed against her by Tenas and it was not until she was approached by a law firm that she first learned of what acts Tenas allegedly committed against her classmates that she concluded she must have been abused too, despite only being in Tenas' class for two months," the district lawyers wrote in their pleadings.
Trial of the consolidated suit is scheduled Nov. 10.
City News Service
