Former Teacher Had Sex, Traded Photos With Student: Feds

YONKERS, NY — A former Yonkers high school teacher was accused of having sex with a 16-year-old student.

Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced a two-count indictment Wednesday charging Sandy Carazas-Pinez, 34, of Bethel, Connecticut, with enticing a minor victim to engage in illegal sexual activity and production of child pornography.

Prosecutors said Carazas-Pinez, a former high school teacher in Yonkers, enticed one of her students, who was only 16 years old at the time, to engage in sexual activity with Carazas-Pinez and further induced the same student to participate in live-streamed sexually explicit conduct while on video calls with her.

Carazas-Pinez was arrested Wednesday and was presented in Manhattan federal court.

Williams said Carazas-Pinez exploited the trust placed in her as a teacher to sexually abuse a teenage student in her care.

“Today’s indictment makes clear that my office will continue to tirelessly pursue sexual predators of all forms — especially those who are entrusted to care for children — and hold them accountable to the fullest extent under the law,” he said.

According to the allegations in the indictment, Carazas-Pinez was a high school teacher at a school for K-12 students in Yonkers.

From November through February, she abused her position as a teacher by inducing and attempting to induce a student into a sexual relationship. The student was 16 at the time of the abuse, police said.

Carazas-Pinez singled out the child for personal attention at school and induced the child to engage in sex with her by leading the child to believe they were in a romantic relationship.

She used her personal cell phone to call, text and video chat the minor to arrange sexual encounters and to repeatedly have the minor engage in live-streamed sexually explicit conduct while on video calls.

In text messages with the child, Carazas-Pinez referred to her sexual encounters with the child and the live depictions of sexual conduct she got the child to create as “gifts.”

Prosecutors also said Carazas-Pinez sent the child sexually suggestive photos of herself, along with sexually explicit text messages, using her cell phone. After doing so, she told the minor to delete them and repeatedly asked whether it had been done.

In order to have sex outside of the school premises, prosecutors said Carazas-Pinez told the minor via text messages to obtain day passes from the school to be permitted to leave campus. She met the child near the school and drove them to another location.

On multiple occasions, authorities said, while parked in Carazas-Pinez’s car in the Bronx, Yonkers and Staten Island, she had sex or attempted to with the minor child.

The enticement charge carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison. The pornography charge has a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.