Former Riverside teacher pleads guilty, breaks down as victim's mother testifies

Amanda Leigh Quinonez, a former language arts teacher and water-polo coach at Eleanor Roosevelt High School, pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual penetration with a foreign object, providing explicit material to a minor, and one count of lewd acts on a child. In Riverside Superior Court, she broke down while the victim’s mother described finding her 14-year-old son silent beside a sheriff’s deputy in the school’s administration building after learning of the abuse.

The mother explained that the incident forced her son and his older brother to quit the baseball team and switch schools due to peer ridicule. Quinonez apologized, saying she failed as an educator and hopes her own daughter will judge her by the person she becomes. She was released on a $50,000 bond and will undergo a state prison mental-evaluation before returning for sentencing on November 10. Judge Joshlyn Pulliam presided over the hearing.