ARAPAHOE COUNTY, Colo. — A former Aurora middle school employee accused of sexually assaulting an 8th-grade student has been sentenced to 15 years in prison, officials announced on Thursday.
Rodry Kyle Pombo, 27, a building manager at Horizon Middle School in the Cherry Creek School District when the crime happened, pleaded guilty in December to one count of sexual exploitation, according to a news release from the 18th Judicial District Attorney's Office. Other charges in the case were dropped as part of a plea agreement.
Police received a tip in late 2018 that the victim, a girl, was sexually assaulted during the 2014-2015 school year. Detectives interviewed the victim, who was 13 when the assault happened, and she told police she had numerous sexual encounters with Pombo in janitor closets at the school, the news release said.
“Sexual predators like Mr. Pombo count on vulnerable victims to keep quiet,” Senior Deputy District Attorney Danielle Jaramillo, who prosecuted the case, said in the news release. “That’s why so often this crime isn’t discovered until years later, when victims become adults and realize the scope of what was done to them."
Pombo had resigned from the school in 2015.
“We drop our kids off at school to be educated in classrooms, not sexually assaulted in janitor closets," District Attorney George Brauchler said in the news release. "What goes on in the mind of a man who whisks a 13-year-old girl into a closet? These are egregious violations – we think our kids are safe when we send then to school, and they should be."
