Burbank teacher denies engaging in sexual contact with underage former student
Sean Sigler, a Burbank teacher accused of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a former student, pleaded not guilty Friday of engaging in any such contact with the girl.
The 53-year-old was arrested last month after the 17-year-old ex-student accused him of engaging in inappropriate sexual contact with her when she was 15. He now faces 21 felony charges including four counts of using a minor for sex acts, three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under 16 and one count of possessing over 600 images of child pornography, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Sigler faces more than 16 years in prison if convicted and is currently being held on $550,000 bail.
According to the Burbank Police Department, Sigler met the girl when he was employed by the Los Angeles Unified District as a teacher at Gardner Street Elementary School and she was his fifth-grade student. Sigler and the student had maintained a personal relationship over the years since then, the department said.
The district attorney’s office said the alleged crimes took place between September 2016 and last December. There is no information to suggest that anything sexually inappropriate happened earlier, according to authorities.
Sgt. Derek Green, a spokesman for Burbank police, said last month there is nothing to suggest the incidents happened on a Burbank Unified School District campus. However, they’re believed to have occurred within the city.
Sigler, a Burbank resident, worked for Los Angeles Unified from March 1998 to June 2016. Since 2016, he has been employed as a fifth-grade teacher at Bret Harte Elementary in Burbank.
He has been on leave from Burbank Unified since his arrest. Matt Hill, Burbank Unified’s superintendent, said last month the district will cooperate with authorities and conduct its own internal investigation of Sigler.
Twitter: @Andy_Truc
