HARTFORD – A former Hartford school official will appear in court next week to face a felony charge of impairing the morals of a child.
Hartford Police began an investigation on Monday, April 4, of Eduardo Genao, 57, of Hamden, the Hartford Public School System’s former Executive Director for Compliance.
“As of April 5th, Mr. Genao is no longer employed by Hartford Public Schools,” Pedro Zayas, Hartford Public Schools director of communications, said at that time. Genoa was employed by Hartford Public Schools for 11 years before abruptly resigning.
According to the court affidavit , th victim is a 13-year-old girl. Hartford Police were notified by the teen’s mother that a Hartford Public Schools official was inappropriately texting her daughter.
Police then met with the mother and victim and fund that Genao first met his victim at event at a Bulkeley High School event on March 19 when they sat next one another.
Genao asked her to send him some PowerPoint screens that she was shooting with her cell phone and then thanked her later in the evening via a text message.
That began a chain of text messages that went from friendly to sexual, police said. At one point, the victim’s mother told her daughter to block his texts and then later said to unblock him to better see what his intention was.
According to the affidavit, his texts were sexually explicit. In one case, police said, he sent texts to his victim from an Atlanta hotel room and asked her to send pictures of her “belly with the zipper open…” Police said Genao told his victim he could “get into trouble” and that it was dangerous for him to be texting her.
Hartford Police got a search warrant on April 5, to look at Genao’s personal cell phone. Investigators met with Genao at the Board of Education conference room and Genoa said he was getting an attorney. He told police he would exercise his fifth amendment right not to incriminate himself and told police he would turn himself in – if they sought his arrest. He also gave over the six-digit code to unlock his cell phone.
Genao also told police and the security coordinator for Hartford Public Schools that he didn’t know the victim was 13 years old.
Police said a forensic investigation of Genao’s phone conducted on Thursday, April 7, showed 1,075 iMessage chats, 100 MMS messages and 1056 SMS messages were deleted and not fully recovered.
