COSTA MESA : High School Teacher Held in Molestation

A high school teacher who works in Costa Mesa will be arraigned Monday on charges of molesting a 14-year-old girl who lives near him in Long Beach, police said.

Paul D. Kahn, 41, was arrested Monday night by Long Beach police at his home. He was charged with a single felony count of child molestation and was released on $25,000 bond.

Kahn teaches at Back Bay High School and Monte Vista Alternative Education School, a continuation school on the same grounds as Back Bay in Costa Mesa. He was put on paid administrative leave Tuesday, said Tom Godley, assistant superintendent for the Newport-Mesa School District.

The arrest was the second in connection with the case. Kahn was arrested Feb. 20 after the teen-age girl, who was staying at his home while her parents were on vacation, notified a neighbor that she had been molested, said Long Beach Police Sgt. C.S. Roberson. That evening, police picked Kahn up.

But the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office declined to file charges at the time because of a lack of evidence, and Kahn was released, Roberson said. Since then, Long Beach sex crime investigators interviewed high school students and teachers and accumulated more evidence, Roberson said.