Mesa school employee arrested after police find inappropriate text messages with 14-year-old boy

PHOENIX — A 24-year-old teacher’s aide at a Mesa school was arrested Tuesday after allegations of inappropriate behavior with a student, authorities said.

Administrators at Empower Academy, which is near Guadalupe and Sossaman roads, alerted the Mesa Police Department on Monday afternoon.

School officials alleged that a teacher’s aide, 24-year-old Dominic Sette, was inappropriately texting a teen boy, police said.

Patrol officers responded and interviewed school administrators, the 14-year-old boy and his parents, after which they handed the investigation over to the Mesa Police Department’s Special Victims Unit.

Investigators learned that Sette had been texting with the boy for several months, allegedly asking him to send nude images, police said.

After authoring multiple search warrants and conducting further interviews, police established probable cause to arrest Sette around 5 p.m. Tuesday on charges of sexual exploitation of a minor and luring a minor for sexual exploitation.

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