Teacher’s aide, Beaumont Unified School District sued over her alleged sexual harassment of students

Two boys allegedly targeted by a Beaumont Unified School District teacher's aide suspected of sending them explicit images and repeatedly harassing them in an attempt to sleep with them sued her and the district for infliction of emotional distress and negligence, it was announced today.

The plaintiffs and their families filed the civil action in Riverside County Superior Court, naming Michele Alejandra Carrillo and BUSD as defendants.

"Parents have a right to send their children to school confident that they will be educated, not molested,'' the mother of one of the alleged victims said. "There have been other instances in Beaumont High School where a female teacher sexually abused male students. This school and the district should have been on high alert for this type of behavior, and they were not."   

The district did not immediately respond to a request for comment.    Carrillo, who was arrested at the end of March on suspicion of contacting a minor to commit a felony and distributing pornography to a child, is out of custody and has not been criminally charged. Her current work status could not be confirmed.   

"Beaumont High School and the Beaumont Unified School District failed in their most important responsibility -- educating children in a safe environment," the mother of the other alleged victim said. "I believe that my child was sexually molested and harassed because the district failed to conduct comprehensive reference and background checks of prospective employees before giving them access to children. The people responsible for this failure and the horrific consequences need to be held accountable."  

According to the plaintiffs, Carrillo blatantly flirted with the two boys, touched them intimately, asked them to make pornography and sent them "obscene videos of her naked and performing sexual acts."  

"Carrillo asked one of the victims if she could come to his house to have sexual contact ... by saying he could do whatever he wanted to her,'' the plaintiffs alleged.

Attorney Saul Wolf, representing both teenagers, said there were numerous "red flags" that the district and Beaumont High School administrators ignored.

"These included interacting with male students on social media and texts, placing herself physically close to male students to touch them, hugging them and playing with their hair, making sexual comments about male students' appearance, trying to remove male students from BUSD campuses and take them to lunch and to their homes,'' he said.   

The plaintiffs allege the defendant engaged in a pattern of lewd behavior that was obvious long before she harassed the students, but there were no repercussions.  

Carrillo liked to call one of the students her "favorite white boy," and the suit further alleged that between January and March of this year, she focused an inordinate amount of attention on him.

In the case of the second student, the alleged harassment began in the fall of 2022 and continued into the first half of 2024, according to the court filing.   

"Carrillo sent a video of herself in a school bathroom, where she proceeded to take off her top and expose her bare breasts,'' the narrative said. "She sent [the student] a total of four to five videos, including videos of her masturbating and one of her having sex."

The plaintiffs alleged the youths suffered irreparable harm. They're seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.   

No court hearings have been set yet in the matter.