Sacramento after-school teacher convicted for luring 12-year-old student for sex
A Yolo County jury has convicted a Sacramento man who sent sexually explicit messages on Instagram as he tried to lure a 12-year-old girl to have sex with him, prosecutors said.
Taylor Lewis Gholar, 29, was convicted Thursday after an eight-day trial, according to a news release from the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
When he was arrested in January, a Sacramento City Unified District spokeswoman said Gholar was not an employee of the district but had worked for the district in 2016. Gholar was working at the after-school program at John Still Elementary School in Meadowview, which is run by the Rose Family Creative Empowerment Center, according to the school’s website.
Prosecutors said Gholar met the girl when she was in second grade; he was her after-school teacher. He was her teacher for the next three years. After the girl completed fifth grade, she and Gholar had no contact until the she was 12 years old and in seventh grade.
Witnesses testified in the trial that Gholar began communicating with the girl through Instagram messages on Jan. 19. The girl immediately told Gholar she was 12 years old.
Over 12 hours of exchanging Instagram messages, Gholar asked the victim if she wanted to have sex, asked for provocative photos of her and sent her a sexually explicit photo of himself, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Prosecutors said the girl told her parents after Gholar became concerned about her mother knowing they were communicating. Then, her parents and police posed as the girl and continued communicating through social media with Gholar.
In the early hours of Jan. 20, West Sacramento Police Department officers, pretending to be the girl, arranged to meet Gholar in West Sacramento. Prosecutors said the purpose of the meeting was for Gholar to have sex with the girl. They also said Gholar arrived at the meeting location with condoms, which were found when officers arrested him.
“Mr. Gholar used his position of trust as a teacher to convince a 12-year-old to have sex with him,” Yolo County District Attorney Jeff Reisig said in the news release. “We are pleased that with the diligent efforts of law enforcement and the jury’s decision, Mr. Gholar will never be a teacher again.”
Gholar is scheduled to sentenced Nov. 23, and faces a sentence of four years in prison.
