Published January 13, 2015
Hours after posting bail on one sexual assault charge, a high school teacher was jailed again on a separate rape charge brought by a woman who learned of the first arrest from media reports, authorities said.
James Michael Esquivel, 28, was charged Sunday with burglary and sexual assault in a case involving a former girlfriend who accused him of following her into her garage, then choking and raping her.
Esquivel, a special education teacher at Reagan High School, was arrested again late Wednesday, accused of raping a woman he met at a bar nearly two weeks ago. He was being held early Friday on $100,000 bond, a jail official said. The jail had no information on an attorney for Esquivel.
"By no means are we calling him a serial rapist," Bexar County sheriff's Deputy Chief Ronald Bennett said in Friday's editions of the San Antonio Express-News. "We're just calling him a troubled person."
North East Independent School District officials placed Esquivel on administrative leave this week and said they were moving forward with the termination process. But the arrests raised questions about his hiring two years ago.
While Esquivel's application was being processed, a case involving alleged sexual assault was working its way through the court system. In that 2006 case, another of Esquivel's former girlfriends filed a protective order against him, claiming that he sexually assaulted her at least twice, that she feared him and that he was violent.
Deb Caldwell, a school district spokeswoman, said Esquivel applied for the job before he had been charged, so a Department of Public Safety background check revealed nothing. Though Esquivel was hired eight months after applying, Caldwell said "there was nothing there" when the district checked his certification before hiring him.
Wednesday's arrest came after a woman told sheriff's deputies that Esquivel assaulted her after she and her cousin met him and a friend at a bar.
The woman had been drinking, she said in an affidavit, and went home with her cousin, where she passed out. Esquivel and his friend later arrived at the home but the woman told the group she was going to sleep. When she woke up the next morning, Esquivel was lying next to her, she said, and her pants and underwear were missing.
In the 2006 case, Esquivel was charged with a family violence assault, a Class A misdemeanor. It later was downgraded when he agreed to plead no contest to a Class C misdemeanor of assault by offensive touch. He received deferred adjudication after completing family violence and anger management classes.
https://www.foxnews.com/story/texas-teacher-arrested-for-rape-twice-in-three-days