An Idaho teacher was accused of sexual assault. 2 more students came forward

Alex Brizee, Idaho Statesman

CALDWELL (Idaho Statesman) – Prosecutors in Canyon County plan to file additional charges against an Idaho teacher who was accused of sexually assaulting one of his students after two more students came forward.

Newly filed court records obtained by the Idaho Statesman disclosed that two teenage girls whom Juvent Josue Ramirez taught at the Canyon-Owyhee School Service Agency told the Wilder Police Department they had been inappropriately touched by him.

Ramirez, 34, taught business at the public school cooperative, which provides programs for special education, alternative and career technical students, according to the school’s website. The school, Canyon-Owyhee School Service Agency Regional Technical Education Center, is located off of Penny Lane in Wilder.

Canyon County Deputy Prosecutor Kyra Venecia has filed a motion asking to add three additional counts of battery to Ramirez’s ongoing criminal case. He already faced two felony counts of sexual battery of a minor child after another one of his students, who was 17 at the time, informed the school’s principal in February that Ramirez touched her inappropriately, triggering an investigation by the Wilder Police Department.

Under the state’s criminal rules, offenses from separate incidents that are part of an ongoing “transaction” or the same “common scheme or plan” can be joined together under one criminal case, which is what Venecia asked of the presiding judge, Thomas Whitney.

All three of the accusers are teenage girls and were Ramirez’s students, Venecia argued in her request, and all of the similar offenses occurred at the school and were captured on video.

Ramirez’s “conduct, presented together, shows that the defendant knew what he was doing and that he was not touching those girls on accident,” Venecia wrote. “It also shows that the defendant chose certain types of victims to prey on, specifically young, vulnerable girls in a subordinate position to himself.”

Court records showed that a hearing on the request was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. April 28 at the Canyon County Courthouse.

Idaho teacher held on $1 million bond

The Wilder Police Department got involved in late February after the 17-year-old student reported that Ramirez sexually assaulted her. In an interview with Wilder Police Sgt. Eric Obenchain, the girl said she began speaking to Ramirez in September, because she was having some family issues, and she “thought that she could trust him,” according to an affidavit of probable cause.

But she said he made sexual comments to her and inappropriately touched her while in school, according to the affidavit. On one occasion the student was sitting next to Ramirez when he put his hand between her thighs and touched her vagina, the affidavit said. Police said they were able to confirm the incident through surveillance footage.

“I was scared and my body froze,” the student told police. “I wanted to get out of the seat, but I couldn’t.”

The next day, Ramirez was arrested and booked into the Canyon County Jail. Third District Magistrate Judge Ryan Dowell set his bond at $1 million, doubling the prosecution’s request.

“The allegations in this case include sexual contact with a minor child that was in his care as a teacher,” Dowell said. “It’s extremely, extremely concerning. I don’t think that $500,000 is enough.”

During Ramirez’s preliminary hearing in March, his private defense attorney Gerald Raymond Bublitz, questioned whether the teen was identifiable in the video footage, and said he disagreed with Obenchain’s interpretation of the video.

“I don’t think that it clearly shows any touching in the vaginal area,” he said. “I don’t think it shows any clearly sexual contact.”

But the prosecution said Obenchain’s review of the footage was clear to him and much better quality than the recording he took of the surveillance footage.

The judge agreed that there was “probable cause” to believe Ramirez committed the sexual offense, adding that the prosecution only had to meet that burden to move forward. Ramirez’s trial was scheduled for August, court records showed.

Ramirez previously denied the allegations. He texted Obenchain before his arrest that “whatever ‘video evidence’” police had was being misconstrued, according to an affidavit of probable cause.

“I have done nothing wrong and have always acted in the best interest of the students,” Ramirez texted Obenchain Feb. 20. “My side of the story is that I deny the allegation.”

More students accuse Ramirez of inappropriate contact

The week after Ramirez was arrested, Wilder Police Officer Maide Blanco met with two female students about their interactions with Ramirez, according to probable cause affidavits.

Both female students, a 17-year-old and a 19-year-old, told Blanco in interviews that Ramirez was known as some of the students’ “favorite teacher,” and he portrayed himself as a family man.

One of the students, the 17-year-old, said Ramirez touched her leg in October 2024, according to court filings. He was also seen on surveillance footage grabbing the girl’s hand, touching her arm and standing so close to the girl that he had his body pressed against her, the filings said.

The girl said she’d developed a close relationship with Ramirez after she confided in him about the death of a family member, which felt like a betrayal. The girl’s mother also told the officer that her daughter had spoken “very highly” of Ramirez and the teen was “so upset that he could do something like this,” an affidavit said.

For the 19-year-old student, she said that once Ramirez was arrested, she started to reflect on their interactions and realized that “teachers shouldn’t act like Mr. Ramirez” did toward his students, according to an affidavit.

The student said Ramirez would call her “cute” and “pretty,” and that during a parent teacher conference in February, he grabbed her leg and squeezed it, according to court filings. That meeting, along with an October 2024 incident when Ramirez touched the teen’s hip, was captured on the school’s surveillance footage, according to court filings.

The teen also recalled to Blanco another interaction when Ramirez told her he was glad she was a legal adult, which “rubbed her the wrong way,” the affidavit said, but she said she didn’t have any evidence of his actions and thought people wouldn’t take her seriously.

“She hoped it was only happening to her, but then she realized it had happened to someone else when he got arrested,” Blanco wrote in the affidavit.