On Jan. 14, Andres Javier Vianes, an ROTC instructor at Diamond Hill-Jarvis High School, turned in his letter of resignation to the Fort Worth school district. His reasons for resigning, he wrote, were “personal health issues/divorce.”
In the weeks that followed his sudden departure, rumors circulated about why the retired army sergeant would leave in mid-semester from the campus where he’d worked since 2008.
One current Diamond Hill-Jarvis student, who asked not to be named, said she’d heard that the man his students called “Sarge” had cancer.
“A lot of people were talking about collecting money for him,” she said.
Sarge did not have cancer. What the married 51-year-old did have, prosecutors and others say, was an affair with one of his students, a long-running sexual relationship with a former student, and, as of Feb. 8, a criminal charge that could land him in prison. And his wife of 28 years has filed for divorce.
Less than a month after his resignation, Vianes was arrested in San Antonio on a Tarrant County warrant, on a charge of having an improper sexual relationship with a student — a Class 2 felony that carries a sentence, on conviction, of at least two years in jail. He was released on $20,000 bond the next day. According to police records and interviews for this story, Vianes’ romantic relationship with the student started in 2012, when she was 17, and the two are still together.
Vianes could not be reached for comment.
One of the saddest parts of his story is that through the years, he apparently has, in appropriate ways, helped many students, both boys and girls, find jobs and get into college.
But with at least two young women, according to interviews and text messages obtained by Fort Worth Weekly, the relationship went far beyond that. In one of the messages between Vianes and the younger student, after some graphic sexual talk, he told her he was finishing a college recommendation letter for her.
“It’s a awesome one, baby,” he wrote.
It would be another two years before the record of those texts joined with another revelation — a hotel receipt that ended up in his wife’s hands — to bust up his world. That day he sent one girlfriend a message saying he was heading north to start a new life. Instead, he was headed for San Antonio with the other young woman and, briefly, for a jail cell.
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Before coming to work for the Fort Worth school district, Vianes served as a junior ROTC instructor in the Birdville and Lancaster school districts for a total of five years. Records from the Fort Worth district show he received glowing recommendation letters from former supervisors. His military record includes several commendations and promotions.
Mark Thomas, a spokesman for the Birdville school district, declined to comment for this story. He did confirm that nothing in Vianes’ record there indicated any inappropriate relationships with students.
Those who know Vianes describe him as a charismatic, caring person who goes out of his way to help people. A source close to Vianes’ family said he has stacks of letters from former students thanking him for his guidance. The source said Vianes has helped a number of poor students find their way into college, the military, or a job.
Stephanie was one of Vianes’ ROTC students at Diamond Hill-Jarvis and one of those he helped. A year after she graduated, she also began a four-year affair with him.
(None of the young women referred to in this story are quoted by name, at their own request or at the request of family members. All are being referred to by pseudonyms.)
Stephanie said she looked up to Vianes, and he helped her get into college.
“I wanted to be like him,” she said. “One of the reasons I made it to [college] was because of him. If I needed help with school, he was always there for me.”
His generosity and charisma are what attracted her to him, she said. After he worked closely with her on the college admissions process, she said, “One thing led to another.” She described the courtship as mutual.
Stephanie said that she knew Vianes was married from the start. The former army sergeant promised he would leave his wife for her — one day. “We used to talk about that,” she said. “He would tell me, ‘Be patient, it’ll happen one day.’ ”
His reason for the delays, she said, was financial. “He didn’t want to leave everything to her. He had his retirement check from the military, and he didn’t want to leave that [to his wife].”
But in 2012, she said, Vianes began to pull away, to become more distant. He told her that work was keeping him away from her. To make it up to her, he bought her a pedicure.
When they went together to the spa, however, an incident happened that would change everything. Vianes had put down his phone, and a spa worker mistakenly handed it to Stephanie instead of to Vianes. When he snatched it away from her in a panic, she began to get suspicious.
Later she checked Vianes’ e-mail (she knew his password), which contained all of his phone records, and found the texts between Vianes and another even younger woman, Ashley.
“He cheated on his wife with me, and he cheated on me with [a then-current] student of his,” Stephanie said.
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Excellent story Eric. I though twice before commenting since so many lives have been hurt by this. This is FWISD under Walter Dansby. Not only the violation and betrayal, but the cover-up!. You didn’t read about this in the Star Telegram. Why is this Principal still employed? Why was the Principal removed at Poly? Why did Dansby bring in a retired crony to take his place? School Board: We need change.
Teacher,
Wow, I do not know what FWISD has done to you personally but you seem to have some serious issues. I am not per-say a buddy of the administration but I also know that all the things that you are complaining about does not affect you or your students in your class and the last time I looked at my contract it was for a teaching position. The bottom line here is this; you need to worry more about your students and less about the job of the administration. By the way I noticed that you are posting at 11:55 shouldn’t you be teaching a class? You also asked why was the principal not fired, that is dumb statement. The principal had nothing to do with this situation.
Maybe if you spent more time working on your lesson plans and preparing for the student’s you would spend less time worrying about things that you cannot change by complaining.
Wow, I don’t know what “Teacher” has done to you, but you seem to have some serious issues too.
He was my mentore but, now sarge is nothing. What is done is done we cant believe what he did, i started putting the peices together and realized it was a missunderstanding but it turned out to be true. If you se this Sarge i no longer look up to you.
learn how to spell
then judge!
learn how to spell then judge!
Learn how to post AND then judge!
@Rex: Funny how you rag on “Teacher” for posting during the day, yet you, also a teacher, posted at 1:58! Glass houses Rex! You don’t know if this teacher is still employed, retired, had to quit or whatever else may be the reason. “Bottom line” for you, is that Dansby has failed this district in more ways than one, starting with allowing over a million dollars spent on one lawsuit, with more coming down the pike! It DOES affect students, when $ is spent on legal fees,when it should be budgeted to help schools in need, or utilized to give employees raises! What bothers me is that it doesn’t bother YOU! Our district has been saying over and over that we have a budget shortfall, yet the board has the audacity to entertain giving Dansby a bonus and extend his contract for increasing the number of failing schools???????? Wow is right “Rex”! But, your entitled to your own opinion.
As far as the principal goes, she should be held accountable for her failure to investigate the matter further, when the parents came to her with their concerns. You don’t say, “that it was necessary that the two spend time together because Ashley was so involved in the school’s ROTC program.” If the principal did say this, it sounds like she didn’t want to take the time to investigate the matter further and she has a different idea of what “mentoring” really is! However, the blame shouldn’t solely be on the principal, but also the parents, who should’ve insisted, by taking the matter to central office, if they didn’t feel comfortable with the answers they received. The parents should’ve also pressed the matter with their daughter, if they felt uneasy with how much time she was spending with this man. Sorry, but the child was still a minor and the parents had every right to monitor their child’s activities.Better yet, they have the right to request a parent conference with the Sergeant and an administrator. Many viable solutions, but apparently, not a whole lot was done until it was too late.
this guy is the worst kind of pedophile who fills the heads of children with dreams and promises, only to prey on their vulnerability. I hope when he goes to prison, he will remember these children, because the hard core criminals will make him remember over and over again as they beat and rape him. Pedophiles are the scum of the prison system and that is an insult to scum!
this does not make him pedaphile!! the girl most certainly knew what she had gotten herself into. what he does in his personal life is his own business not anyone else. no one is to judge him i bet everyone has done worse and no one says anything. bunch of trash talkers!!
If you’re going to insult someone by calling them a “Hoe” learn the difference between “Hoe” and “Ho”. One is a garden tool and the other is what Santa says at Christmas!
Your immaturity shows in your use of vulgar language. I am glad you are still in school. So you worry about getting your education and adding intelligent words to your vocabulary. Let the adults worry about what should and will be done with this offender.
Clearly a lack of leadership has occurred by both school and district officials. However the issue of the newsletter was the offense committed by the instructor and not how much money is being paid or spent around the district. Let’s committ to seeing that this offender is proper punished and what needs to be done to ensure it does not happen again. Then we can attack the other issues the exist in the district. Just my opinion.
Yes folks, this is what our tax dollars pay for and what we have to put up with in our schools on a daily basis! These bad mouthed, short fused, illiterate, trash talking morons, who can’t speak, yet alone write, a grammatically correct sentence without dropping the F bomb or using the N word! All this does is makes you sound like a piece of brown trash!!! Maybe you are comfortable expressing yourself like this, but please get off this comment section, before you lower our IQ’s dramatically!
Let me guess, Pimp, his “youngin” used to be your girlfriend? How old are you, 80 to be calling the girls “youngins”? His wife is the innocent party here, so why are you dissing her? Oh I see, you’re mad because her husband was banging your girlfriend! Touché (and no, that is not misspelled).
This man is indeed a pedophile, please if any other girls are victims of this guy, please speak up, Its only a matter of time before he choses his next victim.
This is FWISD under Walter Dansby. Note how articulate our children are? You have work to do if you are REALLY serious about improving our schools. Stop the needless delay and the needless expense on senseless litigation. Get rid of this guy and clean house.
Frustrated
First let me set you straight about the time I posted. Yes, it was at 1:58 right after my Chemo treatment and before I left to go home, I am on a medical leave.
Next, please do not judge a principal about what you heard they did. Please let us only discuss what you know. I know that there is a young woman that is still at this school and yes, this man should be placed in jail for what he did. I also know that there is another young woman that he was also involved with that just graduated and is now attending college. I also know that this man has ruined the lives of many people because of his actions. However, I fail to see how this man’s actions have anything to do with the current administration downtown. I have read each post that you haters are posting about anything that happens in this district good or bad. I am surprised that you are not blaming them for the current drought. Did you also blame Johnson for everything that went bad?
If you naysayers would like a new superintendent then please petition the school board and recommend someone new. My old granny used to say it is better to deal with the devil you know then the one you don’t. If you feel that passionate about a cause that really seems to be bothering you and the person calling themselves “Teacher” then step out from behind the false facade and pseudo names and use your real names. A precedent has already been established about speaking against the administration, heck maybe you too can get 2.4 million.
Then you are a fool with blinders on and no school age children,
Hey Rex, sorry about your cancer. It sounds like you’ve been a teacher. Do teachers get a lunch break? If so, when do such breaks occur? And are teachers allowed to read , post opinions, and exercise other freedoms while on their break time? Or is FWISD operated differently from other school districts in America?
The principal of the school where professional, moral, and criminal misconduct occured under their watch and with their knowledge should be held accountable.
Hey Red, how come you don’t follow your own advice and post under your own full name, with other information to verify who you’re really say you are? I find it very troubling that you don’t seem concerned about the many facts that have been reported in this publication and court records showing the conducts of this school district’s leadership that can be described generally as mediocre, if not incompetent, and as consistently damaging to the children when the Board spend so much time, energy, and taxpayer money to promote, reward, and protect administrators whose incompetence and/or lack of moral compass has allowed unprofessional, unethical, and even criminal conducts to be accepted as practically common place.
And you seem to be perfectly okay with retaliations and discriminations against teachers and other staff speaking out when they see misconducts and other inappropriate or unacceptable actions that hurt students or violate their legal rights and deny them a chance at a decent education because according to you such individuals could always roll the dice with their livelihood and professional career by spending years fighting a well-funded school district in court to vindicate their claims, reclaim their good names, and if persistent enough and fortunate enough to find competent legal representation, to get just financial compensation for the loss to their family’s livelihood and the unwarranted pain and suffering that these immoral and vindictive Board members and administrators had chosen to inflict on the professionals who dared take a stand for the best interest of the students entrusted to the district’s care and for the interests of the taxpayers in the communities that financially support the school district.
Would you want to have to go through what this vice principal and his family had to endure over the past four years? Battling cancer, or a number of serious illnesses, is probably more difficult than enduring a smear campaign, financial struggles, and shenanigans using the legal system (with tax dollars) BUT unlike cancer and other serious illnesses, the pain and struggles WERE THE DIRECT RESULT OF ACTING IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF THE STUDENTS AND THE SCHOOL DISTRICT. Is this the professional or educational culture that you’d be proud to be a part of?
What I’ve learned from observing the recent history of the administration of FWISD is that if I have iffy professional skills, iffy academic abilities, and shady character traits, I would do just fine in FWISD because the culture there not only tolerates but protects principals who like to pinch young boys’ nipples and photograph them shirtless, principals and other administrators who defraud the state/taxpayers, cheat, lie, intimidate, discriminate, obfuscate, bully, etc. The children certainly are learning a lot about the Fort Worth Way, if not about things that make for a good education that prepare them for a good life and productive future.
Rex: Cancer sucks…sorry for your struggles, but I agree with Bubba. Every school is a seed from a much bigger pod! The chief complaint is that this district continues to hide things from the public, by not allowing the news media to do its job…report news! This happened in January and it took The Weekly and ONLY the Weekly, to report it. So much more that should be reported and isn’t!!! Reporting on this story, might have prevented further heartache. Yes, the district is VERY responsible to report it and the principal even MORE responsible to investigate it.
just stop
Seems like every other day lately I am reading some recent article about a public schoolteacher having a sexual affair with a student. What the hell is going on? Can’t these people keep it in their pants? Geez! What is going on in our society these days that would motivate public schoolteachers to engage in sexual relations with underage students? What a bunch of reprobates! Maybe teachers need to be much better screened before they are hired.
Looks like the Startlegram once again thinks it is breaking new news…….:
http://www.star-telegram.com/2014/06/24/5925569/ex-rotc-instructor-accused-of.html
Reading this all over again after the weekly published it makes me wonder there is more to the story. I knew this man and I’m still pretty shock i still want to believe its all a lie. Many of us were close to him and makes you wonder if his intentions of helping us were real or not. Even if it hurt to see someone you cared for go to jail i hope the law of Texas does punish him with jail. Reason being so he can have time to think on what he has done to these two girls. Yes, the girls knew better but so did he, the adult in this case was him and a lot of people incluiding myself trusted him. Good Luck to Sgt Vianes. Thank you for letting us down