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On Tuesday, Palo Alto police arrested a man who they say molested teenage girls at his home. The incidents happened several years ago and recently came to light.
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Mark Allan Hodes, 74, was taken into custody at his home in the 4100 block of Manuela Avenue, just off the intersection of Foothill Expressway and Arastradero Road. Investigators said the residence is where the alleged molestations involving three separate girls took place between 2011 and 2016, according to a press release issued Thursday morning.
The investigation began on June 9 of this year, when two women in their 20s contacted Palo Alto police to report that they were each sexually molested by a private math tutor years earlier while they were teenagers, police said.
Detectives interviewed a total of seven girls who said they were between 14 and 17 years old when Hodes allegedly touched them inappropriately during tutoring sessions, according to police.
Detectives took the case to the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and a Superior Court judge issued an arrest warrant for nine felony counts of lewd acts with a minor aged 14 or 15 years old, the press release states. The charges against Hodes indicated that these counts stem from three of the minors.
Hodes was arrested at his home without incident and booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail in San Jose, police said.
Hodes’ LinkedIn profile shows he has owned Peninsula Tutoring Service in Palo Alto since 1970, providing “professional private instruction in mathematics and the sciences at primary, secondary and university levels.”
Investigators suspect there may be other victims based on themes in the allegations and the fact that Hodes regularly provided private tutoring services in his home. Hodes tutored students who attended Castilleja School, Palo Alto High School, Gunn High School and Gideon Hausner Jewish Day School, though it’s possible he tutored students from other local schools, according to police, which added Hodes was not employed at the aforementioned schools.
Any other victims or anyone with information related to the case is asked to call the department’s 24-hour dispatch center at 650-329-2413. Anonymous tips can be emailed to paloalto@tipnow.org or sent by text message or voicemail to 650-383-8984. Tips also can be submitted anonymously through the police’s free mobile app, downloadable at bit.ly/PAPD-AppStore or bit.ly/PAPD-GooglePlay.
Revised correction: The original version of this article quoted the Palo Alto Police Department press release, which stated that detectives identified “seven separate total victims” of Hodes. To clarify, the nine charges stem from the complaints made by three of the women. For a variety of factors, the District Attorney’s Office did not file charges based on the four other women’s experiences.