A former Redlands teacher was released earlier this month after serving a fraction of his 75-year prison sentence for sexually assaulting three male students in the 1990s.
Sean Ramiro Lopez previously taught at Clement Middle School before being convicted as a sex offender and sentenced to prison for the crimes.
Lopez’s parole was made possible by the state’s Elderly Parole Program, which makes offenders eligible for parole once they turn 50 and have served at least 20 consecutive years in prison.
He will serve the first six months of his parole at a temporary facility in Palm Desert.
Lopez’s participation in treatment programs and his reported use of a cane were cited during his parole hearing as evidence that he poses a very low risk of recidivism.
However, the decision to release Lopez has drawn sharp criticism from victims’ advocates and legal experts.
“They never got that closure, and yet this man gets out? What does that say to them? It says their story doesn’t matter. What happened to them didn’t matter,” said Morgan Stewart, an attorney who represents the case represents. one of Lopez’s victims.
Stewart revealed that he is currently working on two other cases against Lopez and five other sexual abuse cases within the Redlands Unified School District. The district has faced allegations of mishandling abuse against students for years. It has paid more than $41 million to settle dozens of different allegations of sexual abuse by teachers.
