Orange Teacher Faces 20 Counts of Lewd Conduct With 2 Students

A middle school English teacher seduced at least two of her students with a series of phone calls, e-mails and dinner engagements before having sexual rendezvous with them, sometimes at their homes, prosecutors said Thursday.

Sarah Bench-Salorio, 28, was formally charged Thursday with 20 counts of lewd conduct with a child under 14, and special allegations of sexual conduct on a child and lewd acts on multiple children. The two boys involved were 13 years old, and authorities said there may be more victims. She is being held at the Orange County Jail on $1-million bail.

“She’s very embarrassed and she’s sympathetic to the boys, and she’s very sympathetic to the school,” said Allan Stokke, the woman’s attorney.

In her court appearance in Santa Ana on Thursday, Bench-Salorio, of Orange, was brought into the courtroom in handcuffs, dressed in a blue jail suit. She was crying softly. She did not make eye contact with her parents and relatives in the audience. They declined to comment.

Orange County Superior Court Commissioner Cheryl L. Leininger issued a restraining order, prohibiting Bench-Salorio from contacting the boys until January 2008. Bench-Salorio will be arraigned next week.

The boys, referred to as John Doe No. 1 and John Doe No. 2 in court documents, were in her English class at Santiago Charter Middle School, where she has taught for two years, said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Christl.

Bench-Salorio is married and has three foster children, ages 5, 10 and 14. Her husband ran for the Orange Unified School District board in November but lost with 45% of the votes.

Prosecutors said the teacher seduced the boys over a period of months, offering them dinners and luring them through phone calls and e-mails.

“[She] was entrusted with teaching these boys with reading and writing. Instead, these victims had to learn lessons they should not know about yet,” said Dist. Atty. Tony Rackauckas. “She is accused of violating their trust.”

Bench-Salorio was arrested Tuesday after school let out, a day after one of the teens told his parents about the alleged relationship. The parents went to police, who interviewed Bench-Salorio.

Authorities said Bench-Salorio met the first boy shortly after she began teaching at the school and began having sex with him in May 2003, a month after she got her teaching credential. They had a 16-month relationship that lasted until September before she began a four-month relationship with a second boy, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said some of the sex took place at the boys’ homes. They are still investigating whether any incidents occurred on campus, officials said.

Stokke said Bench-Salorio was being kept apart from other inmates. If convicted, she faces three to 46 years in state prison.