A Marin police chief is delivering yet another lesson about the dangers of social media.
Several law enforcement agencies converged on a San Anselmo home Monday morning after obtaining a search warrant and arrested a 25-year-old man on suspicion of a sex crime with a minor, police said.
Bail was set at $500,000 for Max Rubinstein, who faces a felony charge of oral copulation with a minor under the age of 16, according to Marin County Jail booking records.
Belvedere Police Chief Tricia Seyler said Rubinstein, who had worked at St. Hilary School in Tiburon for more than a year, was arrested several months after a girl's parents discovered evidence of an suspicious messages on Facebook.
The girl, now 17, was 15 at the time of the first contact with the suspect, Seyler said.
According to a report in the Marin Independent Journal, Rubinstein is suspect of making threats to the girl and her parents if she told anyone. Prosecutors are still reviewing the case for potential charges, the report said.
Officers from Belvedere, the Central Marin Police Authority and Northern California Computer Crimes Task Force went to the man's home on Yolanda Drive in San Anselmo to serve a search warrant Monday morning, the chief said. After evidence was obtained, investigators interviewed Rubinstein and subsequently arrested him at 9:27 a.m.
Police believe Rubinstein became acquainted with the girl when he was employed in the after-school care program at St. Hilary School. The crimes are alleged to have taken place in Belvedere between December 2010 and November 2011, Seyler said.
The IJ quoted the school's principal saying Rubinstein is no longer employed at the private K-8 school.
The crime investigation didn't begin until November 2012 because it wasn't until then — a year after the incidents allegedly took place — that the parents saw entries on their daughter's Facebook page. They questioned her about the relationship and then called police, Seyler said.
The search warrant for Rubinstein's house was issued on Jan. 24, the chief said.
"This is newsworthy because parents who were paying attention to their child's Facebook account discovered some communication between the victim and the suspect and then reported it to police," Seyler said. "My concern is that parents need to be aware of who their children are communicating with on Facebook and other social media and be very careful about the relationships they have with people."
