WOODLAND — Nearly five months after his arrest, a former Woodland High School teacher has been charged with the alleged inappropriate touching of a female student.
A criminal complaint filed last Thursday charges 44-year-old Scott Anthony Sorgent of Stockton with lewd or lascivious acts upon a child age 14 or 15, a felony, as well as misdemeanor counts sexual battery and child molestation.
Sorgent, who pleaded not guilty to the charges at his arraignment hearing Monday, initially was placed on paid administrative leave from the Woodland Joint Unified School District but now is no longer employed there, spokeswoman Callie Lutz said Wednesday.
Free on bail, Sorgent is due back in court Oct. 30 for a preliminary hearing.
The complaint alleges that the conduct occurred on May 4, the day before Sorgent’s arrest on the high school campus. The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office requested additional investigation in the case, which accounted for the delay in filing charges.
Woodland police announced following Sorgent’s arrest that they had been summoned to the school campus on the morning of May 5 after school district officials learned of and reported that Sorgent had inappropriately touched the student.
“Further investigation by the officers revealed that Sorgent had touched the female student in a lewd manner after school had ended yesterday, and made suggestive comments about her body,” police said in a news release.
Sorgent had taught at Woodland High School for less than a year, instructing a “tech-9” class since August 2016, according to his profile on the LinkedIn online networking service. Prior to that, he taught at Rio Valley Charter School in Lodi and Harmony Magnet Academy in Strathmore, southeast of Visalia.