Visalia, CALIFORNIA

Feb 6, 2007 - Gabriel Menesis, 36, pleaded guilty to one count of lewd and lascivious acts with a child younger than 14 years old. A jury trial was to have started Monday.

Menesis was a fifth-grade teacher at Richgrove Elementary when the abuse occurred in his classroom. The incident was reported to sheriff's deputies in February 2003. The victim was 11 years old when the incident was reported to school officials.

Menesis' attorney said his client maintains his innocence but "decided to make a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid having to put his family through the experience of a trial. Issues with DNA evidence also contributed to the decision to take the plea, Garcia said. He did not elaborate."

According to the Visalia Times-Delta, the agreement, apparently, calls for eight years in prison. Menesis will have to register as a sex offender as part of the plea agreement. Menesis has a wife and two small children.
He will be sentenced March 29.


Mar 29 - Gabriel Menesis was set to be sentenced, but since he failed to meet with probation officers, the judge ordered him arrested immediately. His sentencing was pushed back to late April.

Albert Garcia, defense attorney, says, "His teaching career is over, maybe not his life, but he has to register as a sex offender he has a lot of rules to live by, and, so yeah, he's going to have restart his life as something else, but not a teacher."

Attorneys say it's a requirement for defendants convicted of a felony to meet with the probation department before sentencing.

Mar 30 - Under the headline, "Child molester likely to get 8 years" the newspaper details the case.

It was that day in 2003, according to testimony in a 2005 preliminary hearing, that Menesis gave the girl detention for talking in class.

He called her over to his desk and gave her a cream-filled cookie and told her to go under the desk if she heard something. McKee said it was a game that he had played with her before. While she was under the desk the other times, he would give her a cookie, candy or some kind of a treat.

This time, as he pulled her headband over her eyes, Menesis unzipped his pants and sexually assaulted her.“Then he asked her if she swallowed, to which she said yes,” McKee said. “But she didn't. She spit it out on her sweater.”

That single action made this case possible, Turner said. After a lengthy delay, Department of Justice officials ruled that they could not rule out Menesis as a suspect, according to court documents.

“The DNA test was a match,” Turner said. “And it wasn't spit, or sweat or blood.”

The girl reported it to her mother when she got home. The mother immediately went to the principal's office.

A year prior to this incident, officials at Success Community School in Poplar cleared Menesis of allegations made by multiple high-school-age students that Menesis allegedly offered money or marijuana for sexual favors.

Menendez has a wife and two children.

Update Apr 26 - Menesis was sentenced to eight years behind bars, and will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.