Ex-teacher accused of child sex abuse booked at jail after standoff with Sacramento deputies
An accused former school teacher who was in four-hour standoff with sheriff’s deputies Friday has been booked at the Sacramento County Jail and is scheduled to return to court Tuesday.
After the standoff with deputies, Steven Richard Kester, 78, was treated for injuries at a hospital over the weekend and booked Sunday evening at the jail, where he was being held without bail, the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office said.
Kester is accused of sexually abusing students in the Folsom Cordova Unified School District. He worked as a full-time teacher in the school district for more than 30 years until he retired and worked there as a substitute teacher until May 2021, when district officials learned of the investigation that led to ex-teacher’s arrest the following month.
The former teacher faces criminal charges from the alleged sexual abuse. Kester also is being sued in a civil lawsuit filed on behalf of four former Folsom Cordova Unified students, who allege the teacher groomed and sexually abused them while they were his students.
Kester, who was free on his own recognizance while awaiting prosecution in the criminal case, was supposed to be in Sacramento Superior Court on Friday morning but failed to show up without notifying his attorney or the court.
Jay Dyer, Kester’s defense attorney, was concerned about his client’s well-being and asked sheriff’s deputies to check on Kester. Judge Satnam S. Rattu also revoked the court’s order for Kester to remain free on his own recognizance and issued a warrant for his arrest.
The same morning, deputies found Kester at his apartment in the 9200 block of Madison Avenue, near Blue Oak Drive on the border of Orangevale and Fair Oaks. Sheriff’s officials said Kester pointed a gun at himself and stabbed himself with a knife as the deputies tried to de-escalate the situation.
Kester went back inside his apartment and refused to come out until about 1:15 p.m., when he surrendered without further incident. He was placed onto a gurney and taken by ambulance to a hospital.
The former school teacher is scheduled to appear in court at 3 p.m. Tuesday for an arraignment hearing in the child abuse criminal case, court records show. He faces charges of committing lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 in the criminal case. Jail records did not indicate he faces new charges based on Friday’s standoff with deputies.
The child sex abuse civil case is scheduled for a case management conference June 27 in Sacramento Superior Court. The plaintiffs allege serial molestation beginning in the 1990s, with the most recent case of abuse taking place in 2021 at Cordova Meadows Elementary School.
