Compton High Teacher Faces Charges of Sex With Minor

A Compton High School teacher and basketball coach was charged Tuesday with having sex with a 15-year-old student.

Kenneth Banks, 29, faces two felony counts of lewd acts on a child for allegedly having sexual intercourse twice with the girl, now 16, last June and July.

Banks was a mentor for the girl, whose name is being withheld because of her age, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Doyle said.

“Their friendship was known to the parents,” he said. “The girl went to his house to study. He would talk to her about whatever social or personal problems she might have been having.”

Doyle said Banks, who is married, and the girl had consensual sex on two occasions--once at Banks’ home and once at a hotel.

Banks, who is on paid administrative leave, said he has done nothing wrong. The girl was never in his classes or on athletic teams that he coached, he said.

“I didn’t do anything,” said Banks, a third-year teacher. “My name has been dragged through the mud and that will forever be a blemish on my record. But in court the truth will come out.”

The girl’s stepfather, a Compton pastor, complained at a morning press conference in Compton that school and law enforcement authorities failed to take the family’s allegations seriously when they were first reported in mid-April.

“The parents had called the school several times and tried to meet with the principal and they never accomplished that,” said Ezola Foster, president of Black-Americans for Family Values, a Marina del Rey-based advocacy group representing the family.

School district officials denied any wrongdoing. Banks has been on paid administrative leave for about seven weeks, since the school district learned of the allegations, said LaVonne Johnson, acting director of secondary education.

Banks will lose his job if convicted or if an ongoing school district investigation finds that he acted improperly, Johnson added.

Foster, speaking for the parents, also criticized the Compton Police Department and the Los Angeles district attorney’s office for taking more than a month to file charges.

The delay was necessary to complete an investigation and to determine whether there were other alleged victims, Doyle said.

“The Compton police handled the case thoroughly and discreetly,” he said.

Banks’ arraignment is scheduled for June 15. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of four years and four months in state prison.