Trial to start next week for Napa County school employee accused of sexually abusing 5 children

A criminal trial for a former employee of Pope Valley Union Elementary School accused of sexually abusing children and teenagers is scheduled to start in Napa Superior Court on Monday.

Benjamin Casas, 34, will stand trial on multiple felony sexual abuse charges, to which he’s pleaded not guilty. He has been held without bail since being arrested on Oct. 1, 2022, at his Pope Valley home, following four separate law enforcement investigations into allegations of child molestation going back to 2010.

The individual criminal charges include 23 counts of lewd acts upon children. There’s also 18 special allegations of alleged acts performed on minors under 14, each of which could result in a sentence of 25 years to life in state prison. And there are several other special allegations, including:

• Multiple victims

• Substantial sexual contact

• Position of trust

• Vulnerable victims

• Planning, sophistication, professionalism

A statement of facts court filing by the Napa County District Attorney’s Office details the allegations, involving five separate victims, and how they came about.

In 2010, the Calistoga Police Department received a report from a therapist, according to the filing. Parents of a 13-year-old had disclosed to the therapist they had found sexually explicit text messages from Casas on their son’s phone. But the parents declined to put him through an interview and investigation, so the case wasn’t submitted to the District Attorney’s Office.

In 2016, Casas was an employee at the Pope Valley Elementary School, the filing says. One student told his parents about two separate incidents in 2015 where Casas had touched him in ways that made him feel uncomfortable. That included one alleged incident in a bathroom at the school, when Casas asked the student whether he could give him a hug, and then did so after the student said no, according to the filing. The other alleged incident involved Casas sliding his hand up the student’s leg while the student was wearing shorts and rubbing his thigh.

Though that case was investigated, the investigation was closed in 2016 and no law enforcement officers spoke directly to the student, according to the filing.

Casas was investigated again in 2018, by the Napa Sheriff’s Department. The Vice Principal for St. Helena High School reported that a student had reported he was sexually assaulted by Casas for several years while he was a student at the Pope Valley school. According to the filing, the student disclosed several specific incidents, usually taking place at Casas’ home, when Casas had kissed him, fondled his genitals and performed oral sex on him.

The Sheriff’s Office interviewed Casas as a result. Casas denied the allegation, the filing says, but admitted during the interview that he had been put on administrative leave in 2016 for talking with elementary school students about sexual topics and making inappropriate sexual jokes with them.

The next allegation came to law enforcement in May 2022. The Napa Sheriff’s Office received a call from a Pope Valley resident who said a family friend had told her Casas had sexually molested her when she was under the age of 18, the filing says. The family friend in question later called the Sheriff’s Office and reported she had been in a sexual relationship while a student at the Pope Valley School.

She described instances of sexual assault that took place both at the school and at her home — when Casas came over to give music lessons to her and her siblings — ranging from Casas kissing her to him having intercourse with her, the filing says.

The Sheriff’s Office subsequently searched Casas’ electronic devices and found pornographic images on the defendant's iCloud account — with subjects of unclear age; one was titled “Gay teen porn webcam” — as well as several internet searches for child pornography.

Casas was arrested and booked into Napa County Jail on Oct. 1, 2022. Community tensions rose at a subsequent Oct. 5 emergency school board meeting. Pope Valley parents said they felt school leadership had failed them and that they feared even more children had been abused by Casas.

Several more allegations surfaced in October 2022.

Yadira Casas, the wife of Ben Casas, reported to the Sheriff’s Office on Oct. 4, 2022 that her niece had confided to being molested by Casas. The niece told investigators that from second or third grade through sixth grade Casas had inappropriately touched her multiple times. That included at family gatherings at her grandparents’ house, according to the filing.

“She described how the defendant would pretend to tickle her, but instead would put his hand inside her pants and touch her vagina,” the legal filing says. “She never disclosed this touching prior to the defendant being arrested because she did not want to be responsible for breaking up her aunt’s family.”

A woman who identified herself as the cousin of Casas’ wife also told the Sheriff’s Office she had been molested by him when she was 9 years old. According to the filing, that included an alleged incident when she was kissed by Casas while laying on a couch, and another when Casas spooned her and reached toward her genitals before she smacked his hand away.

A number of other allegations were leveled, according to the legal filing, ranging from Casas caressing the abdominal muscles of a student, to squeezing the buttocks of another, to sending yet another “extremely vulgar” text messages.

About a year later, in December 2023, another woman who identified herself as Casas’ cousin called the Sheriff’s Office to report she’d been assaulted by him when she was 4 and he was 12.

That included him forcing her to kiss him and pushing his knee into her genitals. She avoided him afterward, and made a point not to be alone with him, and she said she decided to come forward because her family doesn’t believe Casas did what he’s accused of.

You can reach Staff Writer Edward Booth at 707-521-5281 or edward.booth@pressdemocrat.com.