Teacher charged with molesting five girls

A Santa Monica middle school teacher was charged today with multiple counts of sexually molesting five of his female students, officials said.

Thomas Arthur Beltran, 60, was charged with 14 felony counts, including eight counts of a lewd act on a child, three counts of continuous sexual abuse and three counts of sexual penetration of a foreign object on a child under 14, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Beltran, who is married and has worked at Lincoln Middle School for two decades, taught English as a second language. The Los Angeles resident was arrested Saturday and jailed on $1.1-million bail.

Beltran was scheduled to be arraigned this afternoon. Prosecutors will request his bail be set at $3.3 million.

The 30-year district employee was taken into custody after an investigation that began Friday, when the parents of a 12-year-old student of his brought her to police headquarters, police said. The child had told her parents that Beltran molested her, and she repeated her account to detectives.

Investigators interviewed Beltran’s other students and identified three others who allegedly were victimized, police said.

Santa Monica police said the molestations occurred during school hours and that the suspected abuse of one student continued for more than a year.

“We believe there are more victims,” Lt. Dan Salerno said during a Sunday news conference.

On Monday, police said others had come forward with complaints.

“We have had additional people make themselves known to us. We’re not specifying how many or who those victims are,” said Santa Monica Police Lt. Darrell Lowe. “We do believe there are others out there.”

According to the complaint, the alleged abuse took place as far back as Dec. 1, 2004, and as recently as April 30, 2008. The time span for each count ranged from one day of alleged sexual abuse to 14 months. Most of the counts were for alleged sexual abuse during two- to three- month periods.

If convicted, Beltran faces up to life in prison, according to the district attorney’s office.

Roughly 200 parents gathered in the school auditorium Monday evening to discuss the “crisis situation” with school officials. Principal Tristan Komlos told parents that the school would institute an open-door policy when students were alone with teachers.

Officials declined to say whether Beltran had been accused of improper behavior or disciplined in the past.

Many parents said they were glad to see that the school responded quickly to the accusations. But others said they were disappointed by the school’s previous reactions to complaints.

“This is supposed to be Santa Monica,” said Nereida Gilbuena, the mother of a seventh-grader. “We sweat for this school, we begged for this school. This is the cream of the crop. We’re told you cannot get any better than Lincoln Middle School. That’s what we’re told, and they failed us.”

tami.abdollah@latimes.com