A 39-year-old Utah charter school teacher has been charged 30 felony counts after prosecutors say he sexually assaulted two female students multiple times over several months, both at the Eagle Mountain school where he taught and outside of it.
Ricardo Prins worked at Rockwell Charter School, a tuition-free, public charter school that enrolls children in seventh through 12th grade. He allegedly “used his position to influence his victims,” the Utah County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Tuesday.
Prins is identified as a math teacher in a March 2024 agenda for a meeting of the charter school’s board. Mention of him has seemingly been scraped from the school website, but he was once listed on the school’s support staff directory page, archived search results indicate.
Fourth District prosecutors charged Prins, who is identified in court documents as Ricardo Margalho Prins, on Monday with 15 counts of forcible sodomy, ten counts of rape and a single count of object rape — all first-degree felonies.
He is also facing three counts of forcible sexual abuse and one count of aggravated assault, both second-degree felonies, as well a misdemeanor count of unlawfully kissing a minor.
When reached by phone Tuesday, school officials declined to comment on the case. Prins' court docket does not yet list a defense attorney for The Salt Lake Tribune to contact.
Prins flew to Brazil on Dec. 16. Authorities say he remains abroad and he has not yet been arrested.
Investigating the allegations
On Dec. 15, the Utah County Sheriff’s Office received a report about Prins and “unlawful sexual relation” with two girls, according to the news release. That same day, schools officials put Prins on leave, according to court documents.
Investigators later spoke to the girls, both teens, and went on to find evidence of prolonged abuse starting in September, after Prins asked one to come to his classroom to “hang out during her free time,” according to charging documents.
After that day, Prins kept in touch with the girl through Snapchat, a messaging application. He would ask her to come to his classroom after school activities and then sexually assault her, charging documents allege. On at least one occasion, he also allegedly drove her to a “remote location” to sexually assault her, the documents state, then dropped her off in a parking lot away from her house to “so her home security cameras wouldn’t record him.”
About two months after the assaults began, Prins told the girl he wanted to have sex with another student. He later picked up both girls and drove them to the same “remote location,” where he allegedly raped them.
The car encounters with both girls continued, including one instance where Prins allegedly choked one of the girls until she lost consciousness, charging document states. He also allegedly sexually assaulted both girls in a classroom at the charter school that was being used for storage.
The girls told investigators that Prins told them he had the ability to “hack their phones and erase security footage,” and that he’d previously worked with the Brazilian government and had “murdered 2,000 people,” charging documents state.
During one encounter at a “remote area,” Prins allegedly told one of the girls “he could kill her because they were alone, and no one was watching,” prosecutors wrote.
On Dec. 13, one of the girls came forward about the abuse and messaged Prins that she “had to do it.” He tried to arrange a meet-up to “give her a gift” but the girl didn’t respond. He also tried to call the girl, but she didn’t answer, prosecutors noted.
Prins leaves the country
A school administrator told authorities that Prins had said previously said that “he would never return to Brazil because of issues with his past employment there,” and mentioned that he had not requested any time off prior to being placed on leave on Dec. 15.
On Dec. 18, two days after Prins flew to Brazil, investigators visited his home and spoke with his wife. She told deputies that Prins was in Brazil, but she didn’t know when he booked the flight nor when he was coming home, according to court documents.
Soon after speaking with Prins' wife, deputies received a text message from Prins saying he’d return on Jan. 5.
The next day, Prins reached out to deputies again and offered to talk to officers remotely, “explaining he went to Brazil on short notice because his mother was dying and he wasn’t aware of any investigation, just that he’d been put on leave.” He promised to talk to officers after he returned on Jan. 5.
Two days before his scheduled arrival, he told officers he wasn’t able to return to the U.S. because of issues with his travel documents.
Officers then went to his home on Jan. 7 to serve a search warrant and found Prins’ wife packing their belongings, prosecutors wrote.
“She confirmed to officers that the defendant told her to start packing up their things but said they had not informed the landlord they were moving, nor did she know where they were moving to,” according to the prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant.
She told officers that Prins had discussed moving to Brazil when they spoke earlier that week, but they’d never talked about moving there before.
Authorities are seeking a warrant to return him to the U.S. to face charges.
Prosecutors are asking that Prins not be allowed the option of bail when he returns, arguing that he is a flight risk whose only connection to the U.S. is his wife and children, and that, if released on bail, he would pose a risk to “the public safety and welfare of the community or an individual.”
Utah County deputies are asking anyone who may have more information about Prins as the case continues being investigated to contact their office at 801-798-5600.
