An award-winning South Florida teacher faces charges after a 16-year-old boy from Connecticut wrote about their sexual relationship in a college admissions essay, according to multiple reports.
Carlos Montero, 46, who has taught at both Miami-Dade and Broward county schools, was arrested Oct. 3 by Fort Lauderdale police. He faces four charges, including sexual assault on a minor and obscene communication use of a computer to seduce or solicit or lure a child.
Montero Met the Boy on Tinder, Had Sex After Providing Him with Alcohol
Montero is accused of meeting the Connecticut teen on Tinder in 2021, when the boy was visiting a relative in Miami-Dade County, according to Local 10 News. They moved their conversation to Snapchat, trading nude pictures before meeting in person.
The teacher picked up the boy from where he was staying in Golden Beach and brought him to his Fort Lauderdale home, where he gave the teen an alcoholic drink and they had sex, CBS News reported. While the teen identified himself as 18 years old on his Tinder profile, he told police that he later told Montero that he was a minor, reports said. The boy later regretted the encounter, eventually blocking Montero on Snapchat, though they kept in touch initially.
Boy Wrote About How He 'Came to Terms' with the Encounter
In an October 2021 college entry essay about "self-growth," he wrote about the incident and how he "came to terms" with it, NBC Miami reported. School officials urged him to tell his mother and notify police and that launched the investigation.
Montero was a science teacher at Scheck Hillel Community School. He was also the department's chair for the junior high and high school, according to WSVN. Originally from Venezuela, he previously taught chemistry at Dr. Michael M. Krop Senior High School in Miami-Dade County, according to NBC Miami.
In 2015, Montero was honored by President Barack Obama, who awarded him the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching. He was also honored as the Miami-Dade County Science Teacher of the Year in 2008, reports said. Montero was released from the Broward County Jail Oct. 4 on bonds totaling $40,000, records show.
