Ex-teacher pleads guilty to sexual assault of 17-year-old

Victim says the crime left her with injuries, psychological trauma

MARTINEZ >> A 54-year-old Oakland man pleaded guilty Monday to sexually assaulting a 17-yearold girl he previously had taught at a Danville private school.

Raymond Engeszer, who once taught at The Athenian School in Danville, admitted to committing two misdemeanor crimes: sexual penetration of a person younger than 18 and willfully causing injuries to a child.

As part of an earlier plea deal, Contra Costa County Superior Court Judge Mary Ann O’Malley sentenced Engeszer to 45 days in the county jail. He also must register as a sex offender, serve four years on probation and pay restitution to the victim. In addition, O’Malley prohibited him from contacting the victim for at least 10 years.

Engeszer, a former science teacher, worked at several other schools in the Bay Area, including Convent and Stuart Hall, a private Catholic school in San Francisco, and The Harker School in San Jose. He will not be allowed to teach again.

The crimes took place in 2013, after he had left The Athenian School and the victim had graduated. In an impact statement she read aloud at Monday’s hearing, the victim detailed how Engeszer had begun “grooming” her into a sexual relationship when she was 16 and still his student.

The victim alerted Danville police to the abuse in 2018. After a delay, police launched an investigation last year and received enough evidence from a tape-recorded call between the victim and Engeszer to arrest and charge him with sexual assault of a minor.

Engeszer initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in September, but accepted a plea deal last week.

The victim, who asked not to be identified, said in an interview Tuesday she still is receiving medical attention for injuries suffered during her relationship with Engeszer. She said the abuse traumatized her for years and impeded her other relationships.

“Every time a man of Raymond Engeszer’s height and build with light brown grayish hair passes by, I freeze, scared that it’s him,” the victim’s statement read. “I not only distrust other men. I distrust myself. I sometimes see danger where there is none and I sometimes see nothing where there is danger.”

If people learn anything from this, she added in an interview, it’s that student-teacher or “oldman-young-woman” relationships should not be romanticized.

“I am satisfied that the District Attorney’s Office has worked for a plea deal that aligns with my No. 1 priority, which is to control Ray’s behavior for as long as possible,” she wrote in her statement. “But my next priority is for me to put what I experienced with Raymond Engeszer on the public record so that it can never be swept under the rug, hidden, forgotten or dismissed.”