Police report: Teacher confessed to sex acts with student

A Durango High School substitute teacher confessed to having a 16-year-old female student perform oral sex on him in his wife's minivan, according to a police report released Monday.

The report said Angel Benjamin Menes, 39, first gained the student's trust by telling her to e-mail him if she needed someone to talk to. That gesture transformed into a five-week relationship in which their sexual behavior escalated, the report said.

Police believe the suspect might have victimized other students.

The report said Menes admitted to police that he and the girl kissed after school in Menes' classroom in early April. The report said the girl sent pictures of herself naked and wearing nothing but bra and panties to Menes' cell phone.

According to the report, the flirtatious behavior turned increasingly physical.

On Friday night, Menes picked up the girl at Durango High School, the report said. The two rode in Menes' wife's minivan for a short time, but then he parked the vehicle near the girl's home. According to the report, Menes and the girl moved to the back seat. Menes and the girl performed sex acts on each other, the report said.

The girl said she was reluctant to comply when Menes asked her to perform oral sex. The report said Menes grabbed her by the back of her head or by her hair and moved her head into position.

That night, the girl called her mom, who notified police of the allegations.

The driver's education teacher was arrested Saturday night by Las Vegas police on one count each of sexual assault and sexual misconduct with a student. He was being held late Monday at the Clark County Detention Center on $60,000 bail. In Nevada, the legal age of sexual consent is 16, but the law prohibits sex between school employees and students.

Clark County School District officials said Menes was not in the classroom Monday.

Trustee Carolyn Edwards oversees Durango High School. Edwards said substitute teachers go through as stringent a hiring process as full-time teachers.

That process includes having the applicants' fingerprints checked by the Nevada Crime Central Repository, Las Vegas police and the FBI. Edwards said immediate action was taken by the district as soon as it learned of Menes' arrest.

"There are people who do these kind of things in every walk of life," Edwards said. "That's not an excuse and we should not tolerate it. He won't be in the classroom and he won't be hired by the district."

Superintendent Walt Rulffes said Menes was a long-term substitute at Durango.

The police report says Menes told police he had worked at the school for seven or eight months. Menes also expressed a concern that he might have given the student a sexually transmitted disease.

Mary Jo McGrath, a member of Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation, said Menes' alleged behavior follows the protocol of a child molester.

McGrath said teachers who prey on students often do so by earning their trust. She said such teachers break both student and parent trust because teachers are expected to act as professionals in and out of a school setting. Parents do not send their children to school to have them exploited, she said.

McGrath said she's not surprised that police suspect Menes victimized other students at Durango because child molesters often can't control their demons.

"It's a perversion," she said. "And they will attack as many victims as they have the opportunity to."

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638.