Catholic school teacher charged with molesting student

NEW YORK
New York Post

By Tina Moore January 16, 2017

A 69-year-old Catholic school music teacher was arrested for sexually abusing a girl while giving her singing and piano lessons at her Queens home when she was 11 and 12 years old, police sources said.

Rafael Diaz, music director for the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Parish, was arrested Saturday and charged with sex abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.

The girl, now 15, told investigators Diaz would touch her diaphragm with four fingers and then fondle her breast with his hands over her clothes while making her sing different pitches, the police sources said.

He once asked her if she had started her menstrual cycle and then allegedly put his hand on her private parts over her clothing. The assaults happened four or five times in the girl’s former home between May and June in 2014, the sources said.

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