High school band director accused of having sex with teenage student

While employed as the band director at South Broward High School in Hollywood, Richard Emanuel Esquilin had a sexual affair with a teenage student at the school, according to police.

Esquilin, 28, had an inappropriate relationship with the 17-year-old girl between early November and the end of December of last year, according to a Hollywood police arrest report.

An investigation of Esquilin began after the girl’s mother saw an exchange of text messages with Esquilin on her daughter’s cellphone, the report said.

In an interview with detectives, the girl said the two first had an encounter “inside his [Esquilin’s] back office of the band room,” and at other times in his car, at a drive-in movie and at both their residences when no one was home.

Esquilin, who is a 2008 graduate of South Broward High School at 1901 N. Federal Hwy., told investigators he knows that his actions were wrong and understood there would be consequences.

According to the arrest report, since the investigation started, a former student of the school came forward and told police about an intimate relationship with Esquilin four years ago when she was 16 and before he began to work at the school.

The case has been handed over to the Broward State Attorney’s Office, the report said.

Esquilin worked for the Broward school district from August 2017 until January 5, and he left the school for “personal reasons,” officials said.

On Thursday morning the website for South Broward High School listed him as “Director of Bands,” though he reportedly no longer works at the school.

Esquilin was booked into Broward’s jail Wednesday afternoon on a charge of sex battery by a custodian of someone between the ages of 12 and 18.

During a brief court hearing Thursday, Broward Judge Jackie Powell ordered that Esquilin remain jailed without bond.

Esquilin