Music Teacher Charged With Grooming Student, Showing Her a ‘Love’ Tattoo on His Chest

In a new twist on the epidemic of teacher sexual misconduct in the U.S, a Florida music teacher has been charged with terrifying a teenage student by kissing her between the breasts — and showing her a tattoo on his chest to reflect his love for her.

Rudolph Infante, a 53-year-old teacher at Miami’s Southridge Senior High School, allegedly lifted up his shirt and showed the girl the pair of hearts on his ribcage, telling her they represented one another, according to his arrest report obtained by a local news outlet.

Courtroom video of Infante’s court appearance before a Dade County judge shows the Court setting bond, ordering him to house arrest with an ankle monitor, and telling him stay away from all schools as well as his alleged victim.

Infante became the student’s piano teacher in August of last year. He began grooming her with comments and touching, including “side hugs that made her feel uncomfortable” and grabbing her rear end, according to his arrest warrant.

“If only I was 30 years younger,” he allegedly told the scared girl, according to WPLG’s reporting on the warrant. “You are so beautiful… I can’t wait to be with you.”

According to the Miami news outlet:

The teen told the detective Infante described the boundary crossing as “done out of love and endearment,” and “she stopped asking” him to stop “because she felt he would not listen to her,” according to police.

“Infante grabbed her by the waist while seated in a chair and pulled her toward him, causing her to sit sideways on his lap. While she was seated on his lap, [he] rubbed her back… leaned forward and kissed her on the chest area between her breasts… she felt afraid,” the teen said, according to the arrest report.

In October, she told detectives that Infante snatched her phone from her hands while she was using the Notes app and typed in, “Call Rudy,” along with his phone number.

Detectives said Infante was an imposing presence at a height of six feet tall and weighing 225 pounds.

However, according the arrest warrant, Infante also employed what researchers call classic grooming behavior, as Breitbart News reported in an exclusive investigation into educator sexual misconduct in the U.S. last month.

Infante allegedly would hold her hand, give her high fives, take her into another room adjacent to his classroom for private meetings, gave her his jacket to wear when she was cold, and would order food for them from Uber Eats — but never other students.

She told detectives she “never felt comfortable” when she was with him.

Prosecutors charged Infante with four counts of battery and one count of offenses against students by authority figures.

Infante pled not guilty this week and was released on a $14,000 bond with mandatory house arrest with an ankle monitor.

Miami-Dade County Public Schools is reportedly in the process of terminating his employment.

While typically relationships between adult female teachers and teen boys under the age of consent generate the salacious headlines, national studies show almost nine out of ten cases are perpetrated by male teachers, coaches, and school employees.

While female perpetrators use sexual grooming methods, male offenders typically employ different tactics, researchers told Breitbart News in its misconduct investigation.

Infante’s alleged behavior falls right in the line with what researchers found with male predators.

In those cases, the male perpetrators in the grooming process convince their victims that they are “in love” — typically not emphasizing a sexual attraction, which is usually found in cases involving women teachers.

The love approach eventually may lead to sexual contact.

Educator sexual misconduct in the past two decades has become “rampant,” leading researchers on the issue say. They cite a culture of permissiveness, reluctance to report fellow teachers and often secret student-teacher contact through the internet as among the contributing factors.

Charol Shakeshaft, the country’s leading researcher on the problem, called the number of cases of educator sexual misconduct in United States schools “100 times worse” than the highly publicized pedophile sex scandal that hit the Catholic church in recent decades.

Veteran crime writer Lowell Cauffiel is the author of the New York Times true crime best seller House of Secrets , which documents one of the worst cases of child sex abuse in U.S. history, and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.