Two school employees face child-sex charges

Emily Richmond and Jen Lawson

Tuesday, June 22, 2004 | 11:03 a.m.

A school custodian and a teacher's assistant in the Clark County School District are accused of sex-related charges involving children, less than a week after a substitute teacher was arrested on charges of having sex with middle school students.

Nephye Acevedo-Villatoro, 26, who worked as a custodian at Coronado High School, was arrested Monday, accused of exposing himself to a 13-year-old girl on June 2, Officer Darnell Couthen, school district police department spokesman, said.

Marlene Hazel, 32, a teacher's assistant at Gordon McCaw Elementary School in Henderson, faces a court appearance next week in Henderson Justice Court to face charges of having sex with a 14-year-old neighbor.

Both employees have been suspended and dismissal procedures have begun, Lina Guiterrez, director of licensed personnel for the district, said.

In the Acevedo-Villatoro case, school police allege the custodian exposed himself in front of a student after he tried to lure her into his vehicle, Couthen said.

The alleged event occurred near Swainston Middle School in North Las Vegas.

"The girl did the right thing -- she obtained the vehicle's license plate number and got a description of the vehicle and gave it all to us," Couthen said.

After investigating, school district police arrested Acevedo-Villatoro on charges of open and gross lewdness and possession of dangerous weapons on school property. He had a BB gun and a large hunting knife in his possession when he was taken into custody, Couthen said.

Henderson Police began investigating Hazel in February after her neighbor told police that she had sex with their 14-year-old son in his family's home while his parents were out of town, according to the police report.

The boy told police he was playing video games at Hazel's house with her husband and after the husband went to bed, Hazel allegedly "jumped on him and started kissing him," the report says. He described Hazel as "flipping out."

She told him she had wanted to do this for a long time, according to the report.

At one point the boy told her, "No, I can't do this," the report says. The police report then alleges they went back to his house, where the boy agreed to have sex with Hazel.

Hazel told the boy's father about the encounter a few days later and asked him not to tell anyone, saying it would ruin her life, the report says. The boy's father called police.

When questioned by police, Hazel denied having a sexual relationship with the boy.

Both Acevedo-Villatoro and Hazel are considered support employees, Guiterrez said. The FBI background check and screening process is the same for all 30,000 of the district's employees, Guiterrez said.

"We find out if they have so much as a traffic ticket," Guiterrez said. "The problem is no one can tell us in advance that someone's going to do something bad for the first time after we hire them."

Acevedo-Villatoro was hired March 4 of this year and Hazel was hired in 1997.

A school district attorney has told Acevedo-Villatoro "that he can't go back to work based on the charges against him," Guiterrez said.

District officials were informed June 7 of the allegations against Hazel and she was immediately suspended, Guiterrez said.

Last week, substitute teacher Cornelius Ausborne, 29, was arrested on sexual assault charges after he was accused of having sex with a 13-year-old Grant Sawyer Middle School girl and fondling a 14-year-old student in a classroom.

Ausborne, a former University of Nevada, Las Vegas basketball player, is being held in the Clark County Detention Center on $60,000 bail.

Nineteen school district employees have been arrested in the past three years and charged with sex-related offenses ranging from possession of child pornography to molestation and rape.