LA MESA –
A Helix High School business teacher has resigned after being accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a female student. A Helix geography teacher has been accused of having sex with the same girl, now an 18-year-old graduate, when she was a student at the school.
Four teachers at the East County charter high school have been accused of sex-related crimes involving students in the past 18 months.
Police said yesterday they are recommending that misdemeanor child-molestation charges be filed against Jeff Wenham, 46, of La Mesa, who also was the school's student body adviser.
Wenham has not been arrested nor charged with any crime, said La Mesa police Lt. David Bond. The complaint will be forwarded to the District Attorney's Office for review, Bond said.
Wenham's attorney, Earll M. Pott, said yesterday in a written statement: “Jeff Wenham is absolutely not guilty of the scandalous charge sought by the La Mesa Police Department.”
Bond said the girl's father came to the station a week ago to report that his daughter had been involved with Wenham when she was 17. Wenham resigned June 13, school officials said.
Wenham, who is married, taught at the school for six years, Bond said. The girl recently graduated.
Bond said the relationship did not involve intercourse but was “of a sexual nature.” He said police are looking for other potential victims.
Longtime Helix High Principal Doug Smith, visibly upset at a press conference yesterday at the police station, said he was outraged by the latest incident.
“We're disgusted by this,” he said.
He said a consultant from the National Institute of Ethics will begin work on ethics training for school staff next month.
Smith said he spoke with Wenham over the phone the day he resigned, and he described Wenham as “remorseful.”
Dan Baits, an English teacher at Helix, said teachers at the school are dismayed. “We're almost speechless. How could something like this have happened?”
The latest incident became known while summer classes were in session. Around campus, students and parents were in disbelief yesterday.
Vera Lorje, who was waiting to pick up her son, placed her hands over her face and shook her head when she heard that another teacher had been accused of sexual misconduct.
“My daughter will never attend this school,” said Lorje, whose youngest child will be in the seventh grade this fall. “I'd be so afraid. In my brain, I would be thinking that maybe it'll happen to her.”
Student Kevin Bulin, 15, said, “Helix is getting a bad reputation. Nobody is going to want to come here.”
In May, Garry Wilcox, 43, a Helix geography teacher and soccer coach, was arrested at his Spring Valley home on suspicion of having sex at least once with the same girl that police said was involved with Wenham. She was 17 at the time, police said. Wilcox pleaded not guilty to charges of having unlawful sex with a minor and arranging a meeting with a minor for illicit purposes. He has a trial date of July 22.
In February, former music teacher and band director Jessica Ashley Kahal was sentenced to three years' probation after pleading guilty to having unlawful sexual intercourse with a 17-year-old male student. She was arrested in October after her roommate contacted authorities.
In December 2006, former music teacher and assistant band director Frank Palumbo was accused of having sex with a 17-year-old female student. The girl's father went to the police. Palumbo was sentenced to five years' probation last year after pleading guilty to two charges of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.
Leonel Sanchez: (619) 542-4568; leonel.sanchez@uniontrib.com
