Las Vegas teacher accused of sending nude photos, lewd texts to teen

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Metro Police

Renee Rine

Thu, Feb 8, 2018 (8 p.m.)

A high school teacher's years-long harassment of a student began as light touching and flirting and escalated to unsolicited explicit messages and nude photographs to the teenager, according to a Clark County School District Police arrest report.

Renee Rine’s increasingly aggressive actions, which included invites to the student to a hotel and her house, were highlighted in the report made public this week.

The 36-year-old West Career and Technical Academy geometry teacher was arrested on Jan. 26 on counts of attempted kidnapping, lewdness with a minor age 14 or 15, child abuse, sexual misconduct and unlawful contact with a minor, police said.

Thursday afternoon, she remained held without bail at the Clark County Detention Center, jail logs show. She’s scheduled to appear in court Friday morning.

A teacher and a school police officer summoned a detective to the school on Jan. 24 to report that nude photos of Rine were found on the victim’s phone, police said.

The senior had met the teacher during his sophomore year, he told police. “She has been messaging me outside of school,” he said, according to the report.

About two years ago, the student said to police, Rine approached him while he was moving a desk, and touched his bicep, telling her it “felt really good.”

Later in the day she repeated the message, this time while touching his chest, which made him uncomfortable, police said.

The following school year, Rine told the student that she was having “inappropriate thoughts and feelings” about him, he told police.

The conversations transitioned to email and escalated to back-and-forth text messages, according to the student.

He said he told her to stop, police wrote, but she didn’t, only sending more aggressive messages.

At some point last year, the student said he was called to the dean’s office to talk about possible communication with the teacher, according to the report. He denied anything inappropriate was going on.

The teacher “also made it seem as though I would get in trouble if I said anything, and I was worried she might go to jail,” the student told police.

Then, “I kept telling Rine we should stop talking, she continued to text me,” according to the report.

Afterward, Rine began sending the teen unsolicited nude photos on the Snapchat application, police said.

This school year, Rine started asking the student to meet her at certain places and once rented a hotel room, but the two never met, police said.

Police found messages and explicit sexual messages on the teenager’s phone, according to the report.

“I do not feel comfortable when I see her. The messages she sends me make me feel like she is not very contained. I feel like she might try and do something that I do not want to have happen,” the student told police.

“I do not want to get her in trouble because she was a good teacher — all the students like her. I do not want them to blame me,” he said.

Rine was hired by the district in August 2015 and has taught math at West Career and Technical Academy since then.

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