An Orange County teacher who allegedly fathered a child with a teenage student decades ago has been placed on administrative leave while police investigate sexual abuse allegations against him, authorities said.
Loara High School alum Reiko Wright took to social media on Monday to share her allegations against Steve Graves, who she says abused her and impregnated her in the late 1980s.
Photograph by Steve Graves on the Lexington Junior High School website. The school is part of the Anaheim Union High School District.
(Lexington High School / Anaheim Union High School District)
Another former student of Graves, Helen Lowney, also wrote on social media that she was sexually abused in 1987, when she was 16. Graves, now 61, would have been in her early 20s at the time.
Graves did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Friday evening. A call to a number listed in his name also went unanswered.
Anaheim police spokesman Sgt. Matt Sutter said Wright and Lowney were friends at Loara High School at the time of the alleged abuse. Both intend to pursue legal action against Graves if possible, he said.
“While you saw him as a beacon of guidance and faith, I knew him as the predator who stole my innocence, impregnated me as a teenager, and left scars that run deeper than time,” Wright wrote on Instagram.
Wright alleged that Graves groomed her while she was a student at Loara High and used his position as a teacher and church leader in the community to get closer to her.
Wright later transferred to Gilbert High School in Anaheim, where she suffered humiliation from her classmates while completing her senior year while pregnant.
“He was the teacher who lingered at his son’s desk for a little too long, the church leader who offered whispered condolences cloaked in concern,” she wrote.
Graves, who until recently was the band director at Lexington High School, was placed on administrative leave by the Anaheim High School District on Aug. 29. The district said it is taking steps to terminate him and notified Lexington families of the investigation on Wednesday, according to a statement.
The district's statement also said the allegations had “revealed that paternity testing concluded that Graves had fathered a child with one of the students.”
“Keeping our students safe is a priority on all of our campuses,” the district said. “The sexual misconduct revealed in the social media posts is reprehensible. It violates the district’s core values and fails to meet the high expectations we have for the professional behavior of our staff.”
Graves also previously taught at Ball Junior High School.
No other victims have come forward since detectives began investigating, Sutter said.
“We are working with [the] “We will be calling the prosecutor’s office to see if we can file charges,” he said. “At the same time, we are giving time to see if additional witnesses or victims come forward.”
Graves taught music in the Anaheim Union High School District for more than 20 years and served as band director at Lexington High School for more than a decade, according to a district website. He has received three “Teacher of the Year” awards from the district, according to the website, as well as multiple honorary service awards from the Parent Teacher Association.
Anyone with additional information is urged to contact Anaheim Police at (714) 765-1623 or Orange County Crime Stoppers at (855) TIP-OCCS.
