AURORA | A former Rangeview High School employee has been sentenced to nearly two decades in state prison for molesting a child.
An Arapahoe County District Court judge on Tuesday sentenced James Dolmas, 29, to 17 years in prison for a pair of felony charges of sexually exploiting a child, according to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. Dolmas had pleaded guilty to the charges filed against him on Aug. 10.
Aurora police arrested Dolmas, who previously worked as a campus monitor and theater assistant at Rangeview, in July 2019. Campus monitors are tasked with supervising students, enforcing behavior protocols, escorting visitors and unruly students, and removing disruptive students from class, among other duties, according to a job posting on the APS website.
Investigators believed Dolmas was involved in a relationship with a student at the school after the student’s mother alerted police of her daughter’s frequent contact with Dolmas in early June of 2019.
Court documents showed that Dolmas had sex multiple times with a Rangeview senior on the catwalks above the school’s student theater. The student who was assaulted told police that Dolmas had acted as a mentor to her and only spoke with police after her mother and youth pastor discovered nude photographs of herself she had texted her theater shop teacher. She repeatedly told investigators that her sexual relationship with Dolmas was consensual.
On multiple occasions, Dolmas hit the girl with an electrical cord and paint sticks, causing bruising on her buttocks, legs and breasts.
“The sexual contact and the volume of actions and number of girls is very concerning,” District Court Judge Shay Whitaker said at the sentencing hearing. “But what
is most disturbing is the violence,” Whitaker said. “He preyed on these girls.”
Dolmas worked at multiple APS schools in the past 10 years, police said shortly after he was arrested. A spokesperson for the local school district did not immediately know at which facilities Dolmas had worked.
After police recommended the original charges, multiple other girls said Dolmas had assaulted them in the past. Prosecutors said Dolmas sexually assaulted a total of four girls and had unlawful sexual contact with a fifth.
Dolmas has been listed as a witness or victim in more than a dozen cases filed with the Aurora Police Department since 2014, according to police records. The cases were primarily tied to his security work with the local school district, though he was suspected of distributing “obscene material” in March of 2019, according to police records.
Outgoing District Attorney George Brauchler praised Whitaker’s sentence, but warned that political tampering could make such prison stints difficult to achieve in court.
“Here is yet another school employee who treats our schools like they are a candy shop,” he said in a statement. How can our system craft an appropriate sentence for the exploitation of innocent children for lascivious personal satisfaction? Yes, prison protects our children for a while, but when this criminal is released, he will still harbor the cravings that put kids at risk. Coloradans should know that there are those in the legislature who intend to further weaken the laws that protect our kids from sexual deviants. When they launch their bills next year, tell them how you feel about choosing offenders over victims.”
Dolmas is currently incarcerated at the Arapahoe County Jail awaiting transfer to a state prison, according to county records.