D.C. teacher pleads guilty to having sex with student, 14
By: Freeman Klopott
Examiner Staff Writer
September 15, 2009
A teacher at a District charter school has pleaded to sexually abusing a 14-year-old student.
Ricardo Antonio Cuaderes was immediately sentenced to nine years in prison with all but one-and-a-half years suspended by a Howard County judge for bringing the boy to his Ellicott City home for sex. Cuaderes turns 44 on Tuesday.
According to charging documents, Cuaderes met the teenage boy at the beginning of the 2008 school year at Young America Works. At the time, Cuaderes was filling in for one of the 14-year-old's teachers. Even after that teacher returned, however, Cuaderes and the student continued to meet in Cuaderes' classroom at the end of the day.
At some point, the two began discussing their sexuality, with each letting the other know he was gay, the victim reportedly told authorities, according to charging documents. Cuaderes then asked the victim if he wanted to "hook up." The teen said yes and two conspired for the student to tell his mother he was attending an after-school program when in fact he was being picked up by Cuaderes at the Fort Totten Metro station.
On the days that they would meet, Cuaderes would pick the boy up in his van and drive him back to his apartment at 3109 Normandy Woods Drive, a brick building where he kept a dog and two cats in his apartment, court document said. Once there, they'd climb to Cuaderes' second-floor apartment where they'd have sex and take showers. The victim told police he and Cuaderes always used condoms.
Before Cuaderes would take the boy home, the two would eat TV dinners and watch gay pornography, authorities said.
School officials could not immediately be reached Monday for comment.
Cuaderes was arrested in March and originally charged with nine counts of sex abuse, but he pleaded guilty only to one count.
Cuaderes also was sentenced Monday to serve five year's probation after his prison time. He must also register as a sex offender and cannot have unsupervised contact with persons under 18 years of age.
If Cuaderes violates any terms of his probation, the judge can order his to serve the remainder of is original nine-year sentence.
