Charges brought again against teacher who allegedly raped student | Crime

Content Warning: This story contains descriptions of sexual abuse that may be triggering and disturbing for some readers. Discretion is advised.

A former Las Vegas City Schools teacher is facing new charges for allegedly raping one of his students multiple times.

San Miguel County prosecutors initially charged former Memorial Middle School teacher Leonard J. Romero in early 2023 with five counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor by a school employee and other charges related to the alleged rapes, but dropped all charges against him in the spring. The New Mexico Department of Justice has now re-filed those charges.

Romero, now 28, is accused of having an “intimate relationship” with a then 14-year-old student and having sex with her at least five times, according to an affidavit filed with the San Miguel District Court.

Romero was arrested on June 21 at his home in Las Vegas by officers from the National Police Department (NMDOJ). He is accused of five counts of sexual harassment of minors by school employees, one count of sexual harassment of minors by an electronic communication device and one count of inducing minors to commit crimes. All of these counts are felonies.

Police initially arrested Romero on February 6, 2023, on the same charges. Prosecutors dropped the charges on April 3, 2024. In a motion to dismiss the case in the San Miguel District Court, prosecutors said the charges were dropped because “additional investigation and evidence collection are required before this case is pursued further.”

All seven charges against Romero were dropped “without prejudice,” a legal term meaning prosecutors reserved the right to refile the charges later. Three days after the charges were dropped, NMDOJ agents began investigating Romero, according to the affidavit filed June 21.

According to court records, the NMDOJ re-filed the original charges after completing its investigation, which included executing a search warrant for transcripts of Snapchat conversations between Romero and the girl.

Romero was booked into the San Miguel County Detention Center following his arrest. During a hearing Monday, Judge Flora Gallegos set an unsecured bail of $40,000 for Romero and released him to house arrest with a GPS monitor.

Romero and Las Vegas City Schools also face a civil lawsuit over the alleged rapes. The lawsuit was filed in Santa Fe District Court in August 2023, but was dismissed after LVCS successfully argued that Santa Fe County was not the proper venue for the case because the district does not operate in the county. A judge agreed and the lawsuit was dismissed in October 2023; however, the lawsuit was refiled the same day in Las Vegas District Court.

The lawsuit, filed in Las Vegas, alleges that the district failed to notify law enforcement about Romero’s repeated sexual misconduct, citing many of the same allegations made in the criminal case against him.

The lawsuit accused Romero of “grooming” the girl for a sexual relationship during school-sponsored ski trips, contacting her through social media apps and forcing her to send him sexually explicit photos. The lawsuit further alleged that Romero initially sought a relationship with the girl, but his efforts “continued to escalate until he raped her at least five times.”

Following an anonymous report on January 18, 2023, the district placed Romero on paid administrative leave. Romero was fired following the initial police investigation and has not been employed by LVCS since his initial arrest in February 2023, according to NMDOJ.

A jury trial in that case is scheduled to begin in January of next year. At the time of this writing, no hearing had been scheduled in Romero’s criminal case and he remained under house arrest.