Arrested San Luis High School teacher’s former classmate speaks out

YUMA, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - "They saw this coming." Those are the words from a college classmate of a former San Luis High School teacher accused of sexually abusing a student.

Ness Ramirez, who attended both Arizona Western College (AWC) and the University of Arizona with 25-year-old Ivan Martinez, said they are not surprised about any of this.

"We met my first semester at AWC, he was one of the only trumpet players and everyone just kind of already had him on a pedestal because he was what we call, 'Yuma good,'" said Ness Ramirez, Ivan Martinez's college classmate.

Ramirez said they became friends because they spoke Spanish and that was also his native language.

Ramirez was one of the only students Martinez could communicate with at the time. 

"We were friends for about a good year, and then once COVID happened, and we went to Zoom for COVID, he kind of got really obsessed with a girl in my theory class," said Ramirez.

The classmate said that’s when their friendship started to fizzle out. 

"It wasn't until he sent me pictures of her in our class on Zoom that I was like, 'Why do you have these? You're not even in my class at the time,'" said Ramirez.

From then on, Ramirez wanted nothing to do with him. 

The paperwork we obtained from the Yuma County Justice Court states Martinez is accused of recording, filming, or taking pictures of a 16-year-old student from San Luis High School, engaged in sexual conduct.

"Deep inside me, I just already knew at some point something bad was going to happen and as someone who, right now is trying to be a teacher as well, in the same field, it just saddened me because we’re teachers, we’re supposed to help protect our kids not doing gross things to them," said Ramirez.

Court documents show the alleged abuse happened between October and December of last year.

Martinez was charged with 10 felonies earlier this week, including six counts of sexual exploitation of a minor.

He's being held on a cash-only bond of $250,000 and is expected back in court next week.