A South Florida teacher, whose career abilities were once recognized by former president Barack Obama, is accused of having sexual relations with a 16-year-old male.
Carlos Alberto Montero, 46, surrendered Oct. 3 in Fort Lauderdale and was charged with four sex offenses, records show.
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According to the arrest report, Montero and the Connecticut teenager met on Tinder in April 2021 and continued communicating through Snapchat exchanging nude pictures and talking about meeting to have sex.
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The teen’s Tinder account profile listed him as 18, but he later told Montero he was younger, the report stated.
The teenager was visiting a great aunt in Golden Beach at the time and said Montero “persuaded” him to meet. Montero picked up the teen in Golden Beach and drove him to Fort Lauderdale where the two had sex in Montero’s home, police said.
In the days that followed, the teenager had regrets and became depressed. He talked about it with his friends back home in Connecticut and with Montero on Snapchat, investigators said.
Montero told the teen their sex was consensual and that if it was revealed Montero would lose his job as a teacher. Records show Montero once taught science and chemistry at schools in Davie and North Miami.
The teen blocked Montero on Snapchat in June 2021, the report stated.
The incident was revealed in a college entry essay about “self-growth” that the teenager wrote in October 2021. The essay described the sexual encounter he had with a man he met on Tinder while vacationing in Florida and how he "came to terms" with the situation, investigators said.
School officials urged him to tell his mother and notify police and that launched the investigation.
Montero is facing charges that include sexual assault on a minor, use of a computer to seduce, solicit or lure a child, and traveling to meet a child for sex.
He was released from the Broward County Jail Oct. 4 on bonds totaling $40,000, records show.
The name of the victim was redacted from the report.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Montero is a physics teacher and science department chair at Scheck Hillel Community School in North Miami Beach. Before that, he was a chemistry teacher at NSU University School for about five years and a chemistry teacher in Miami-Dade Public Schools for nearly nine years, the profile said.
Scheck Hillel Community School released a statement saying Montero has not been employed at the school since 2020 and they have not been in contact with him.
"The allegations have no connection to Scheck Hillel or our students, and our school has not been a part of the investigation, the statement read in part. "We want the community to know what we value at Scheck Hillel: our sacred responsibility as educators to care for students."
