OC School Employee Charged For Sexual Assault On Student: Police

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — A Tustin Unified School District employee was charged Wednesday with sexually assaulting a student in Santa Ana.

Mariano Hernandez, 31, was charged with two counts of penetration of a vulnerable person, two counts of sexual penetration by foreign object of an underage victim, a count of contacting a minor with the intent to commit a sex offense and a count of meeting a minor to commit lewd conduct, all felonies.

Santa Ana police officers were dispatched to Westwood Avenue and Riviera Drive at around 7:30 a.m. Tuesday regarding sexual activity in a vehicle, police said.

When officers arrived, they found a man and a young girl in the back seat of the car, according to the Santa Ana Police Department.

The 16-year-old girl is a student at Fullerton High School, where she met Hernandez, police said.

Hernandez works as a behavior interventionist at Benson Elementary School in the Tustin Unified School District, authorities said. The two told investigators they had been dating "for a few weeks," according to police.

Hernandez did not enter a plea during his arraignment Wednesday in the jail courtroom in Santa Ana. The hearing was rescheduled for Feb. 21 in the Central Justice Center in Santa Ana.