In March 2024, Jeremy Rene Reyes, then 20 years old, was arrested on charges of battery, assault, and the rape of a 12-year-old seventh-grader at San Francisco Everett Middle School (EMS). At the time of his hiring in 2023, Reyes was on probation for six felony charges in Contra Costa County, yet was employed as campus security and teaching support with the Mission Graduates Beacon Program after-school program for EMS. According to court documents, Reyes also groomed and sexually abused another young girl, and during legal proceedings, attempted to justify his conduct by claiming that girls at the middle school “are throwing themselves” at him.
Reyes is being held without bail because testimony and text messages convinced the court that Reyes was a threat to public safety. The victim reported that the abuse occurred at Reyes’s home. A law enforcement witness testified that Reyes “acknowledged during his interview that he knew what he was doing was wrong, that the victim was too young, but he did it anyway because that’s how love works.” Judge Brian Ferrall agreed with the prosecution’s assessment that Reyes lacked impulse regulation and was a threat to the public, as exemplified by court testimony below.
According to court transcripts, while working as a San Francisco Unified School District campus security guard at EMS, Reyes repeatedly approached the victim during passing periods, recess, and bathroom breaks. Reyes groomed her by following her frequently on and off school grounds, and engaging in sexually inappropriate conversations with her using WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook Messenger. He even urged her to send him nude photographs. After repeatedly subjecting the 12-year-old victim to this misconduct for months, Reyes lured her to his apartment when she was on her way to school and raped her. Afterward, she went to school and reported the assault to school leadership, who then called 911. The victim spoke mostly to a San Francisco Police Department officer in Spanish due to her limited English and told her she was bleeding from her vagina and in pain after the assault.
Victims ignored and locked out of plea deals in Contra Costa County
2022 court records reveal Reyes issued explicit threats to kill or inflict severe injury on two victims of the transitional housing facility where he resided. Yet the assistant district attorney, without consulting the victims, secured a plea agreement that reduced the entire matter to a single misdemeanor vandalism charge (Penal Code 594(a)), dismissing all felonies outright. A restraining and stay-away order was filed by the victims, subsequently granted by the court, and remained in effect for one year, expiring in February 2024.
When we requested public records on the plea decision in Reyes’s case, the Contra Costa district attorney’s office under Diana Becton denied access, claiming an “investigative file” exemption (Government Code § 7923.600(a)) and attorney work-product protection — assertions that fail for a case inactive and closed since February 2024, where plea documents are not core investigatory material under California law.
This leniency reflects a broader pattern that has drawn sustained criticism of Becton’s administration since she took office in 2017, including more than a dozen prosecutor resignations. Her chief deputy, Phyllis Redmond, with the office since 1989, resigned in 2019, stating Becton’s handling of cases left her “sick to her stomach” and undermined justice for victims, specifically citing the Carmen Vasquez murder. In that case, Becton declined to test stored rape kits and pursued no retrial after Freddie Lee Taylor’s conviction was vacated in 2018 on mental-illness claims. Vasquez, 84 years old, was found by her son; her body showed signs of sexual assault and severe beatings in the head and neck, with nine fractured ribs.
Similar objections have arisen in other cases, also leading to a recall effort of Becton: Gerald Capone Delgado’s 2022 killing of Thomas Arellano resulted in a 13-year manslaughter plea without family or witness consultation and no restitution for Arellano’s young son, despite Delgado’s 80 prior felonies; Stacy Dewayne Corley Jr.’s 2023 murder after a road-rage shooting produced a plea deal his mother called a “façade of courtroom circus” with no true accountability or family input. In some instances, victims and witnesses reported waiting six to seven hours outside courtrooms without ever being called to participate, while others felt Becton’s office scrutinized them rather than the defendants, chilling their willingness to speak out.
Becton previously served as a judge and graduated from Golden Gate University School of Law, which ranked 180 out of 196 law schools in the 2024 U.S. News & World Report listings. The university discontinued its law program in 2023 following years of declining enrollment and repeated failures to meet accreditation standards (e.g., 75 percent of graduates passing bar exams).
Follow us for Part 2 of this investigation where we show why Reyes was hired to supervise SFUSD students, even with six felony charges from Contra Costa, and why this trial has been delayed for two years.