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A former athletic director and soccer coach at a now-shuttered charter school near Redwood City pleaded no contest to statutory rape and other charges stemming from a case involving two students, the San Mateo County District Attorney’s Office said Thursday, May 28.
Palo Alto resident Anthony Giovanny Gutierrez-Molina, 31, worked at the now-closed Summit Everest High School in North Fair Oaks. The school, operated by Summit Public Schools which runs Summit Prep in Redwood City, closed last year.
In March, Gutierrez-Molina was arrested in March and subsequently charged with 12 counts of statutory rape and six counts of oral copulation with a person under the age of 18. He pleaded no contest on May 27 to three counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and two counts of felony oral copulation with a minor in exchange for the other charges being dismissed.
According to prosecutors, Gutierrez-Molina “became very friendly” with a 16-year-old girl who was part of the community engagement program he ran at the school. In March 2023, he brought the girl to his home and had sex with her.
Their sexual interactions also occurred on school property, and continued through November 2024, ending only after Gutierrez-Molina’s wife told him she was pregnant, according to District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.
A second girl was drawn into illegal sexual relations with Gutierrez-Molina and they had sex three times at his home, prosecutors said.
“The abuse committed by Anthony Gutierrez Molina was serious, harmful, and completely unacceptable. Our deepest sympathies are with the students and families who were impacted,” Summit spokesperson Izzy Mason wrote in a statement.
Summit had previously motioned to quash a search warrant sought by the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office for records relating to its own investigation into Gutierrez-Molina. Court documents indicate Summit officials learned of at least one of the illegal sexual relationships in September 2025, six months before Gutierrez-Molina was arrested.
Records obtained by The Almanac indicate that Summit reported Gutierrez-Molina to police that fall. An attorney for Summit prepared a report but charter school officials did not want to disclose it to police, citing attorney-client privilege.
Before a judge ruled on the motion, Summit and the District Attorney’s Office jointly came to an agreement about the report, the details of which are not included in court records. Mason declined to answer questions on the motion, citing the legal proceedings and student privacy.
Gutierrez-Molina is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 8 and is facing up to two years and eight months in state prison, Wagstaffe said. Though he was originally held on $1 million bail, he is currently out of custody on $500,000 bail.
