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SOUTH SALT LAKE — A former staff member at Granite Park Junior High in South Salt Lake has admitted to sexually abusing a student at the school, inviting another student to have sex with her and telling a third student not to report seeing her kissing a student in her office.
Kimberly Jeniffer Cruz Romero, 30, of Kearns, pleaded guilty on Sept. 21 to aggravated sexual abuse of a child and criminal solicitation, first-degree felonies, and witness tampering, a third-degree felony, in three separate cases as part of the same plea deal.
In exchange for her pleas, charges of forcible sodomy and two counts of rape, first-degree felonies, and threatening violence, a class B misdemeanor, were dismissed.
Police said the woman was an attendance tracker at the school, and the abuse leading to the first set of charges began in November 2022 when Cruz was giving a 13-year-old boy a ride home. Cruz told the teenage boy she had feelings for him and that she loved him, according to charging documents.
"It was reported by the victim (that) he and Kimberly Cruz Romero had sexual intercourse on several occasions," including at a hotel in Salt Lake City, in the woman's office at the school and in her car on several occasions prior to the boy turning 14, a police booking affidavit states.
Police said they have photos and video evidence of the sexual abuse with this boy. They said text messages on Cruz's phone support that Cruz "became pregnant with the victim's child." The boy claims he was confronted by Cruz's husband after she became pregnant and that the husband hit him. Court documents indicate she told police she had surgery in Mexico for a miscarriage.
The boy told police Cruz tried to get him to join her gang, and that he was threatened by gang members for saying he wanted to end his relationship with Cruz, according to court documents.
In separate charges filed in February, another student reported seeing a partially dressed Cruz in her office kissing a student he believed was in eighth grade. Cruz told the 11-year-old student who had opened the office door to shut the door, and threatened him that she "would kill (his) family" if he told anyone what he saw, according to the charges.
The student said he did not report it immediately because he was scared about her threat.
Court documents indicate that incident "may or may not" have been with the same victim mentioned in the first charges.
"This incident speaks to a pattern of behavior by the defendant where she would prey on young students to gratify her own sexual desires," investigators wrote in the charging documents.
That incident led to the charge of tampering with a witness.
In the criminal solicitation charge filed in June, a different 13-year-old boy said he had been in detention that was overseen by Cruz, and when Cruz drove him home she told him she "liked him a lot" and invited him to have sex with her in the back seat. The 13-year-old said no, and told Cruz "she was 'tripping,'" according to the charges.
Investigators say Cruz stayed parked in front of the boy's residence for "several minutes" before leaving.
Cruz is scheduled to be sentenced for all three cases on Nov. 13.
