A former English teacher at a private girls’ school in Hancock Park was charged with having a sexual relationship with a student that lasted more than a year, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office confirmed Wednesday.
The charges against Joseph Koetters, who taught at the Marlborough School, were first reported Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times, which cited a Los Angeles police detective.
Koetters, 47, was set to be arraigned in downtown L.A. courtroom Thursday on two counts each of oral copulation of a person under 18 and sexual penetration by a foreign object, the DA’s office said.
Koetters was booked and released on $140,000 bail Wednesday after an arrest warrant was filed Tuesday.
He allegedly initiated a year-long sexual relationship with a 16-year-old student in 2000, according to the DA’s office. The alleged victim brought her story to police in July after reading online about other women’s allegations against Koetters.
In a statement, Marlborough School said its board hired an outside investigator after learning of allegations against Koetters. The school contacted police after learning about a woman who said she had been sexually abused by the teacher, according to the statement.
“Marlborough School expresses its deep sympathy for the victims of the sexual misconduct that has come to light,” read a part of the statement.
The school said minors were promised or asked for confidentiality and thus the institution would not “disclose information that is now becoming public.”
New allegations were coming to light that the school was not aware of and many not involve Marlborough students, according to the statement.
The college preparatory school, on Rossmore Avenue, educates about 530 girls from seventh to 12th grade. It first opened in 1889.
Koetters, of Santa Monica, faces up to five years in state prison if convicted.
He worked at Marlborough for more than a decade and then briefly at Polytechnic School in Pasadena, the Times reported.
Sexual harassment allegations against Koetters first surfaced in an essay by former Marlborough student Mikaela Gilbert-Lurie published in June 2014 in the online magazine xoJane, according to the Times.