Jury convicts former APS second-grade teacher of sexually abusing a student

Jurors apparently believed the testimony of a 12-year-old girl by convicting her former second-grade teacher Thursday of sexually abusing her in an Albuquerque elementary school classroom in 2018 and 2019.

The jury found Danny Aldaz, 47, guilty of four felony crimes for sexually assaulting the girl, who was 7 years old at the time of the attacks.

“At the end of the day, this case comes down to something very, very simple,” prosecutor Rebekah Reyes said in closing arguments Thursday. “If you believe (the girl), you convict the defendant.”

Rates of false reports of sexual assault, particularly by children, are “extremely rare,” Reyes told jurors. “It’s ridiculous to believe that (the girl) made this up.”

The former Albuquerque Public Schools teacher showed little emotion as 2nd Judicial District Judge Joseph Montano read guilty verdicts for two counts of criminal sexual penetration and two counts of criminal sexual contact.

Jurors acquitted Aldaz of a fifth felony count of bribery of a witness. He faces a maximum of 57 years in prison. No sentencing hearing was scheduled Thursday.

Aldez still faces a total of 27 felony charges for allegedly abusing four other girls from 2013 to 2019. He is scheduled for four additional trials through February.

The jury on Tuesday heard testimony from the girl, who described how Aldaz told her to enter a supply closet in her classroom at Valle Vista Elementary School virtually every day.

Aldaz followed her into the closet, where he would “put his hands down my pants” and touch her “private area,” the girl told jurors. She testified that the attacks occurred while her classmates completed reading assignments in the classroom nearby.

Another time, Aldaz forced her to touch his genitals, she said. All the events occurred between August 2018 and February 2019.

Aldaz’s attorney, Alexandra Jones, told jurors that prosecutors had offered no physical evidence or eyewitness accounts to support the girl’s testimony.

The girl first reported the attacks to an adult nearly three years after the fact, Jones said.

“I don’t think (the girl) is intentionally lying,” she told jurors. “I think her memory is flawed.”

Jones also said that adults and investigators provided the girl with details that she incorporated into her testimony.

“Children’s minds are incredibly impressionable,” Jones said.

Second Judicial District Attorney Sam Bregman told jurors that the girl’s account has remained consistent for years.

“Why would she tell a lie about something that happened when she was 7 years old?” Bregman told jurors. “Why would a 12-year-old come in and tell all of us in this courtroom a lie about a most horrific event? Why would she go tell her mother what this teacher did?”

Aldaz began as a substitute teacher in 2004, working at Edward Gonzales Elementary School and Helen Cordero Elementary School.

He also taught children at Blissful Spirits yoga studio beginning in 2015.

He was teaching at Valle Vista Elementary School when the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office began investigating him in January 2020, and he was subsequently fired by APS.