A 67-year-old Cathedral City school teacher accused of sexually abusing five students will stand trial on felony charges, a judge ruled this week.
Following a preliminary hearing Wednesday, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Tucker found there was sufficient evidence to bound Brian Ruben Marquez of Cathedral City over for trial on seven counts of lewd acts on a child under 14 years old, as well as sentence-enhancing allegations of targeting more than one minor in a sex crime.
The judge scheduled a post-preliminary hearing arraignment for Aug. 26 at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
Marquez is being held in lieu of $250,000 bail at the Smith Correctional Facility.
According to the Cathedral City Police Department, in May 2025, an investigation was initiated at Cathedral City Elementary School after officers received reports from an 8-year-old student, whose identity was not disclosed, that the defendant allegedly had touched her inappropriately.
The exact circumstances were not provided.
Further investigation led to the identification of four other alleged victims, all between 8 and 10 years old, police said. Their identities were not released.
The specific locations where the alleged offenses occurred, and what happened during the encounters, weren’t mentioned either.
At the end of a roughly yearlong investigation, Marquez was taken into custody without incident after he was summoned to the police department on May 27.
He has no documented prior felony convictions in Riverside County.
The Palm Springs Unified School District did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether the defendant remained on unpaid administrative leave, or had been formally terminated from his teaching job.