MIAMI-DADE — A former Sunset Park Elementary School teacher was arrested last week following a months-long Miami-Dade Schools Police investigation after multiple students accused him of showing them sexually explicit material and engaging in inappropriate physical contact, according to an arrest affidavit reviewed by the Metro-Dade Times.
Cesar Oriol Cardoso, 53, was arrested Sept. 11 on three felony charges: offenses against students by an authority figure, showing obscene material to a minor, and lewd or lascivious conduct involving a child under 16.
Cardoso has not been convicted of the charges. The allegations contained in the arrest affidavit have not been proven in court.
The case began months before his arrest.
According to the affidavit, a Miami-Dade Schools Police detective was assigned the investigation on April 15 after allegations that Cardoso had shown students inappropriate pictures and videos and touched minors inappropriately. The following day, the detective interviewed the first student at Sunset Park Elementary.
That student told police Cardoso would remove her and other students from physical education, intervention periods or lunch and take them to his classroom under the premise of completing classwork they had fallen behind on. She alleged that Cardoso would then call her to his desk and show her inappropriate images or videos on his cellphone.
The student's allegations went beyond a single encounter.
According to the affidavit, she told investigators Cardoso showed her images of nude adults and, on another occasion, first showed her a photograph of himself fully clothed in front of a mirror before swiping to another photograph in which he was nude. She also described being shown sexually explicit videos.
The student also told investigators that some of the alleged behavior dated back to the 2024-25 school year. She said Cardoso would remove another student from class so the students could spend time in his classroom and alleged that he slapped both students on the buttocks while they were playing.
Investigators subsequently interviewed several other students.
On April 24, another student told detectives that Cardoso had excused her and the first student from physical education and brought them to his classroom. She alleged that Cardoso complimented the other student's appearance and attempted to touch or grab her arm. The student also said Cardoso had previously complimented her appearance while touching her hair, behavior she said stopped toward her after she told him to stop.
A separate student interviewed that same day told investigators she had once been alone in Cardoso's classroom before school when he placed his hand on her shoulder and moved it down to her thigh before quickly removing it, according to the affidavit.
Police continued conducting interviews into May.
One student interviewed May 18 alleged Cardoso showed her inappropriate images when other students were away from the classroom. She also accused him of attempting to touch her upper thigh or buttocks in a back room. The student told investigators she redirected his hand and told him not to touch her, after which Cardoso allegedly apologized.
On May 21, detectives interviewed another student at her home. She alleged Cardoso began touching her arm and thigh and slapping her buttocks near the end of her third-grade year. She told investigators that the following school year, while she was in fourth grade, Cardoso began showing her sexually explicit images and videos.
The same student alleged that Cardoso once told her he wanted to kiss her and leaned toward her before she turned her head and walked away.
The affidavit identifies five alleged victims as V1 through V5 and also references at least one additional student as a witness. Their names are not being published.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools said administrators removed Cardoso from the school setting on the next business day after learning of the allegations in April. The district said he separated from M-DCPS in May and is permanently barred from seeking future employment with the school system.
The timing means Cardoso was no longer working for the district for several months before his arrest.
On Sept. 11, Schools Police detectives interviewed Cardoso at department headquarters. According to the affidavit, detectives advised him of his constitutional rights and Cardoso invoked those rights and declined to provide a statement. Exercising the right to remain silent is not evidence of guilt.
Police subsequently took Cardoso into custody without incident and transported him to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Cardoso was ordered held without bond following his arrest, according to court and jail records.
The district said in a statement that it was "deeply troubled" by the allegations and said conduct of the type alleged would not be tolerated.
Some parents, however, have questioned when families were informed.
Parents interviewed by local news outlets after Cardoso's arrest expressed concern about what they described as a lack of transparency from the school. Other reporting indicated parents were contacted by the school during the weekend following the September arrest.
The publicly available arrest affidavit does not establish what information, if any, Sunset Park Elementary provided to its broader parent community when Cardoso was removed from the school in April.
The criminal case remains pending.