Calif teacher accused of sex abuse in YouTube video gets 10 years
A California educator who resigned after a woman accused her in a YouTube video of abusing her when she was a 12-year-old student was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday, prosecutors said.
The former teacher, Andrea Michelle Cardosa, pleaded guilty last month to three counts of lewd acts with a child in a deal that spared her from a possible life sentence, said Riverside County District Attorney’s Office spokesman John Hall.
Cardosa was charged last year with abusing two girls over a 13-year-period while teaching at schools they attended in Riverside and Perris, both suburbs east of Los Angeles.
The case grew out of a video posted on YouTube last February in which a woman confronted Cardosa, accused her of abuse, and said she had ruined her childhood. In the video, Cardosa expresses regret and says the abuse was not anything she had intended.
The victim who uploaded the video addressed the court on Monday, according to the Riverside Press-Enterprise newspaper, saying, “I will stand up for my 12-year-old self who did not have anyone to fight for her.”
“It is never OK for an adult to betray the trust of a child,” she said.
