Authorities have arrested a Santa Barbara Unified School District employee on felony charges of engaging in illicit sexual acts with a young girl over a period of several years.
Jose Reyes Arroyo, 48, custodial services supervisor for the district, also is facing felony charges of possessing child pornography.
The criminal complaint filed against Arroyo in Superior Court in Santa Barbara alleges that, between July 18, 2014, and Sept. 10, 2020, he engaged in lewd and lascivious conduct with a child 14 years or younger and recorded such acts.
The girl was 7 years old when the alleged sexual acts began, according to the complaint.
The alleged acts did not happen on school district grounds and were a domestic matter, according to a statement put out by the school district.
“Santa Barbara police made an arrest of one of our employees on Saturday, Sept. 12, on felony charges of continuous sexual abuse of a child, possession or control of child pornography, and a misdemeanor of “Invade Privacy: Look Through Holes/Etc,” according to the district’s statement.
“Upon receipt of this information, we immediately placed the employee in question on unpaid leave. The district continues to collaborate with the Santa Barbara Police Department, who advised us that the investigation is ongoing and that the crimes were an isolated domestic matter.
“The only nexus to the Santa Barbara Unified School District is that the subject of the investigation was a school district employee. Investigators stated that at this time, their investigation is able to eliminate the possibility of a threat to the general public.”
The charges include three felonies and a misdemeanor.
One of the felony counts alleges that Arroyo “did willfully and unlawfully possess or control any matter, representation of information, data, or image, including, but not limited to, any film, filmstrip, photograph, negative, slide, photocopy, videotape, video laser disc, computer hardware, computer software, computer floppy disc, data storage media, CD-ROM, or computer-generated equipment or any other computer-generated image that contains or incorporates in any manner, any film or filmstrip, the production of which involves the use of a person under the age of 18 years, knowing that the matter depicts a person under the age of 18 years personally engaging in or simulating sexual conduct.”
— Noozhawk staff writer Joshua Molina can be reached at jmolina@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.