Dance instructor is accused of molestation

A 28-year-old dance instructor was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of molesting one student and videotaping several others changing their clothes and using the bathroom.

Jason Marian, a former teacher at the Mission Viejo Dance & Performing Arts Center in Laguna Niguel, was arrested on several felony counts of oral copulation with a minor, sexual penetration of a minor with a foreign object and possession of child pornography.

The Aliso Viejo resident is being held on $100,000 bail at Orange County Jail.

Sheriff’s deputies said they began investigating Marian in April, after he invited several students, ages 10 to 14, to practice a dance routine at his home.

When the students used the bathroom to change, one discovered a hidden camera, said Jim Amormino, spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.

“A very alert young girl saw a camera concealed in the bottom of a cabinet in the bathroom, confiscated the camera and gave it to her dad,” he said.

The father turned over the camera to the Sheriff’s Department, Amormino said. Deputies searched Marian’s home the following day and seized another camera and a computer, Amormino said. Investigators found images of four students using the bathroom.

Meanwhile, another student contacted the Sheriff’s Department and alleged that Marian had molested her at his home and at a beach in Dana Point in 2006, Amormino said.

Marian, a graduate of the University of San Diego, performed in productions at Saddleback College, UC Irvine and SeaWorld before he was hired at the dance studio in October 2004. Before Marian started working there, the studio ran a background check that found no problems, said owner Jena Minnick-Harry.

Marian most recently taught tumbling and boys’ hip-hop. Minnick-Harry fired him in April after she was contacted by the parents of the girl who discovered the camera.

Minnick-Harry said she had never heard any concerns or suspicions about Marian’s behavior.

“The kids loved him. The teachers had respect for him,” she said. “We were all floored.”

Marian is expected to be arraigned this week. If convicted of all the charges, he could face eight years and four months in state prison, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Lynda Fernandez.

seema.mehta@latimes.com