A former Broward County high school teacher has been arrested on multiple sexual battery charges, authorities said.
Carlos Alberto Menendez, 48, was arrested in Sunrise Friday on five counts of sexual battery on a minor over 12 and under 18, Broward jail records showed.
According to the arrest report read at his first court appearance Saturday, Menendez had been a teacher for more than 20 years.
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Menendez was employed as a Language Arts teacher at Everglades High School in Miramar, according to the Broward School District.
He was hired in 2004 and left in 2020. During those years Menendez also taught at Indian Ridge Middle School and Cypress Bay High School.
He left for a teaching job in Delaware.
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Police said the alleged incidents happened between February and October in 2017 but was not reported until December of 2020.
Three encounters happened at Everglades High School and two occurred in his car. The alleged victim was a student between the age of 15 and 17 at the time of the alleged crime, the report stated.
There were three pregnancy scares, but Menendez forced the teenager to take the Plan-B pill to avoid pregnancy, police said.
When their sexual relationship ended, Menendez told her repeatedly he would kill himself if she ever told anyone because he didn’t want to go to prison for 45 years, the report stated.
In bond court over the weekend, Menendez's attorney said he was under the care of a psychiatrist once a month and a psychologist once a week.
The teenager said she came forward because she felt groomed and was concerned that other girls would become victims. She said she read sexual text messages between Menendez and another girl at Cypress Bay High School, investigators said.
Detectives set up a recorded phone call between the teen and Menendez during which he expressed his fear of going to prison and stated he only ever had sex with his wife and the teenager.
Menendez remains in the Broward County Jail without bond.
Investigators believe that there could be other alleged victims and are asking anyone with information to contact Miramar Police at 954-602-4357 or Broward Crime Stoppers anonymously at 954-493-8477.
