Acquitted teacher awaits word on reinstatement

Sometimes guilty people can be the most vehement in making accusations of innocent people to cover up their own wrongdoing. I saw the mother of the 16-year-old in the story below on TV. The woman seemed to be out-of-bounds in her anger. Some parents just won't believe their kids might be lying, but this jury unanimously agreed that the accuser was covering up his own guilt in this matter. The teacher only needed one juror on her side to avoid conviction; she had all twelve on her side.

It looks like Bonnie Dumanis screwed up again on this prosecution. Was she just doing what district lawyers wanted to gain political support?


Acquitted teacher awaits word on reinstatement
San Diego Union Tribune
January 28, 2010

IMPERIAL BEACH — The school district that placed a South County teacher on paid leave pending her trial on molestation charges said yesterday that it would know more next week on whether Carmina Erica Lopez, who was acquitted Monday, would get her job back.

Jurors on Monday found Lopez, 33, not guilty of all charges in the two-week molestation trial involving a former student, who also is her godson, after beginning deliberations late Friday in Chula Vista Superior Court.

South Bay Union School District Superintendent Carol Parish said the district was awaiting word from the state about whether Lopez’s credentials would be reinstated.

In a statement released yesterday, Parish said Lopez’s compulsory leave of absence would end no later than 10 days after Monday’s judgment. She said the district could make no decision until then.

Lopez denied molesting the boy, who is not being identified by The San Diego Union-Tribune because the newspaper does not name minors involved in sex-crime cases. She testified that she was repeatedly raped and threatened by the boy, now 16, to keep quiet.

Lopez most recently taught fifth grade at Sunnyslope Elementary School in Palm City. She began teaching at the district’s Oneonta Elementary School in Imperial Beach in 2004, and later that year transferred to Nestor Elementary. She moved to Sunnyslope in 2005.

Bob Boyce, Lopez’s attorney, said yesterday that his client was taking things “day by day.”

JANINE ZÚÑIGA