A former teacher at a Mesa elementary school was sentenced to 15 years in prison today after pleading guilty last month to charges that he attempted to molest a 7-year-old girl in the band room of the school where he worked, court officials announced this afternoon.

The girl was a student at the school. 

Michael Lamonica, a former music teacher at Mesa's Brinton Elementary School, pleaded guilty  to four counts of attempted child molestation.

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Lamonica was arrested in March of last year after the then-12-year-old victim came forward about the abuse.

The girl told police that Lamonica molested her twice between January 2005 and November 2005.

Lamonica would ask the girl, then in third grade, to help him clean the band room after class. It was then that Lamonica would molest her, she told police.

Lamonica has been a teacher with the Mesa Public School District since August of 1992. In addition to teaching at Brinton Elementary, he taught at Madison, Salk, and Edison elementary schools before moving to Brinton in 2001.

• Crime