San Bruno school teacher convicted of molesting four students
SAN BRUNO — A former San Bruno elementary school teacher was convicted Friday of molesting four female students over a multi-year period, according to prosecutors.
Jeremy Yeh, 34, of San Mateo, was found guilty on all 17 felony child molestation charges. He faces up to 425 years in state prison when he is sentenced April 25.
“Parents send their children to school believing that the kids will be safe and protected,” San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said. “This defendant violated that trust as a teacher by molesting four first- and second-grade girls multiple times.”
“The jury rendered justice today by ensuring that this sexual predator spends the rest of his life locked up in state prison,” Wagstaffe said.
Yeh worked as a teacher at El Crystal and Allen elementary schools. Between 2016 and 2022, he touched the students on the genitals and buttocks, according to prosecutors.
The first victim came forward in 2018, but she was called a liar by the administration at El Crystal and recanted, prosecutors said. The school closed that year.
Yeh went on to molest three other students. In 2022, another victim came forward and authorities eventually identified a total of four victims, according to prosecutors.
He was taken into custody at Allen in April 2023. At the time, then-San Bruno Police Chief Ryan Johansen said the case would have lasting impacts on the community.
Prosecutors said Yeh admitted to touching one of the victims because “he wanted to see what it felt like.”
Bobby Thompson, an attorney who is representing the victims, described Yeh as a “classic pedophile” who “groomed young girls with special attention and rewards.”
“He’d play ‘tickle time’ with them as a guise to touch their vaginal area and buttocks,” Thompson said in a statement. “He’d still be doing it to this day but for some young girls that were brave enough to speak up.”