A woman accused via a viral YouTube video of molesting a former student is now facing 16 felony counts related to alleged sex crimes against children, the Riverside County District Attorney's office announced last night.

See also: Viral Video Outs Alleged 'Childhood Rapist Teacher.'

Andrea Michelle Cardosa, the former Riverside Chemawa Middle School teacher whom accuser Jamie Carrillo, now 28, called a “childhood rapist teacher” in a video she uploaded Jan. 17, is facing counts related to Carrillo and to a second accuser, prosecutors said.

The 40-year-old educator was arrested last night based on a $5 million warrant, according to the D.A.'s office.
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In the video, Carrillo said she believed the alleged crimes were beyond the statute of limitations, but that she still wanted answers. The Southern California resident is seen calling a woman she says is Cardosa, an Alhambra High School vice principal.

Carrillo said on the video:

I was only 12 years old when I met you. Do you realize that you brainwashed me and you manipulated me, and what you did was wrong?

… You ruined my life. You ruined by childhood … You sicken me.

The woman at the other end of the line eventually answers that harm “wasn't anything I intended.”

After the video was posted, Cardosa resigned from her job at the Alhambra school. The district stated that she came to the job in recent months with glowing recommendations. Cardosa immediately came under scrutiny from Riverside authorities as a result of the video.


We asked Riverside County D.A.'s spokesman John Hall why the statute of limitations (a time after which a case can't be prosecuted) wouldn't apply here. He said:

There is no statute of limitations when charges carry a potential life sentence as there are related to Jane Doe 1. And the charge involving Jane Doe 2 is within the statute of limitations.

From the prosecutors' timeline it would appear that Carrillo is Jane Doe 1. Jane Doe 2 was not identified. According to a D.A.'s statement:

Riverside police detectives then began an investigation into the allegations that Cardosa had illegal sexual contact with Jane Doe 1 while the victim was a student at a middle school in the city of Riverside and continued while she was in high school. The charged crimes involving Jane Doe 1 are alleged to have happened from 1997 to 2001.

Within days of the posting of the video on YouTube, Jane Doe 2 – who also now is an adult – came forward to report that she also had been victimized by Cardosa when she was a student at a high school in Perris in 2009 or 2010.

Cardosa faces five counts of suspicion of aggravated sexual assault on a child under the age of 14, five counts of suspicion of lewd acts on a child under the age of 14, and six counts of suspicion of lewd acts on a child 14 or 15 years of age while the defendant is at least 10 years older, prosecutors said.

The counts of aggravated sexual assault on a child each carry a potential life sentence if the suspect is convicted, prosecutors said.

Carrillo hired an attorney, who said a civil lawsuit in the matter was possible.

Cardosa was arrested in Perris about 5:45 p.m. by a Riverside County Sheriff's Department warrant team, the D.A.'s office announced last night. 

She was scheduled to be in court in Riverside Feb. 6.

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