CENTENNIAL, Colo. — A former Horizon Middle School building manager who sexually assaulted an eighth grade student has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
According to a release from the 18th Judicial District Attorney's (DA) Office, 27-year-old Rodry Kyle Pombo pleaded guilty in Dec. 2019 to one count of sexual exploitation of a child as part of a plea agreement. Other counts were dismissed.
The release said Aurora Police learned in late 2018 that a girl had been sexually assaulted at the school over the course of the 2014-2015 school year.
Investigators interviewed the girl, who was 13 at the time of the crimes. The release said she told police she had had numerous sexual encounters with Pombo, frequently in janitors' closets. She did not report the crimes at the time, but the DA said she told investigators she knew the behavior was wrong.
“These cases keep coming. Despite all we do, predators find ways to take advantage of our children,” District Attorney George Brauchler said in the release. “We drop our kids off at school to be educated in classrooms, not sexually assaulted in janitor closets. 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. This offender is going to prison where he can’t hurt anyone else.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Danielle Jaramillo, who prosecuted the case, added, “Sexual predators like Mr. Pombo count on vulnerable victims to keep quiet. 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. The defendant used his position as a school employee to take advantage of a student, and it is due to her strength and courage that we are able to put him behind bars so that he won’t be able to do this to another student ever again.”
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Pombo resigned from his job at Horizon in Sept. 2015, according to the release. The Cherry Creek School District said he previously worked at Meadow Point Elementary School.
The plea agreement also calls for Pombo to register as a sex offender, the release said.
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