2 MCPS Students Accused Of Raping Underage Girls

SILVER SPRING, MD — Two Montgomery County Public School students were arrested earlier this month on charges they raped underage girls off campus.

Jonathan Coreas-Salamanca — a 20-year-old Montgomery Blair High School student — is charged with second-degree rape, sexual abuse of a minor family member, and a third-degree sex offense, court records reveal. Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School Student Ivan Reyes Lopez, 19, faces a second-degree rape charge.

Coreas-Salamanca is accused of sending sexually explicit messages and pictures to a pre-teen on a cellphone. According to charging documents, the victim's father found the cellphone, which documented the alleged sexual abuse.

WJLA, which first wrote about the cases, reported that Reyes Lopez is accused of luring a different pre-teen from a Silver Spring park to his family apartment. Reyes Lopez told the girl to sit down, turned on Netflix, and raped her, WJLA reported.

Shortly after Coreas-Salamanca and Reyes Lopez were arrested, the principals at the high schools sent a letter to parents addressing WJLA's story — criticizing the reporter for putting too much emphasis on the schools the suspects attend.

"First, these alleged incidents did not occur on MCPS property. It remains unclear to us why the reporter chose to place so much focus on the schools they attend in his story," Montgomery Blair Principal Renay Johnson and B-CC Acting Principal Shelton Mooney said in a joint statement. "Second, even though these allegations are unrelated to our schools or to MCPS, we are deeply saddened and troubled by the news of these reported crimes."

Johnson and Mooney added that the students will not return to school while their cases are pending.

Under Maryland law, Montgomery County Public Schools is required to provide free education to students between the ages of 5 and 21.

"There are hundreds of students across the school system who will be 19 or older as they walk across the stage this spring to get their high school diplomas. And there will be hundreds who will return next year that will receive additional learning support through special education services or other MCPS programs," Johnson and Mooney wrote. "There is no data suggesting that being a high school student at 19, 20 or 21 makes a person more or less likely to commit a crime. Any suggestion otherwise is wrong and harmful to our students who work hard every day in their classrooms, extracurricular activities and jobs."

In the letter, the two principals also addressed parents' concerns about students who aren't American citizens.

"Some community members have suggested that MCPS ban students based on their immigration status. The U.S. Constitution prohibits schools from denying access to public education based on immigration status," they wrote.

ICE confirmed in a statement to Patch that Coreas-Salamanca is an undocumented immigrant.

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) lodged a detainer for Jonathan Coreas-Salamanca, an unlawfully present Salvadoran national, with Montgomery County Detention Center on Feb. 14, following his arrest by Montgomery County Police for sex abuse of a minor and second-degree rape," ICE spokeswoman Kaitlyn Pote wrote.