A longtime Las Vegas school bus driver is accused of sexual assault against “very small children,” police said Friday.
Clark County School District special ed bus driver Michael Banco, 55, allegedly preyed on at least two and possibly three preschool- and elementary school-aged children on his bus, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Officers in the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department received a report of “inappropriate conduct” Wednesday and collared Banco the following day, according to a release from the department.
Banco is jailed in the Clark County Detention Center and faces eight counts of lewdness with a child younger than 14, four counts of child abuse, four counts of sexually motivated kidnapping and three counts of sexual assault of a child younger than 14, police said.
The driver has operated buses for the school district since 1995, and he is now on leave without pay, Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky told reporters at a press conference Friday. Banco usually transports some 20 children to school from all over Las Vegas Valley, Skorkowsky said.
Banco’s salary was nearly $61,400 in 2013, the most recent year listed on the Transparent Nevada website. School district officials said they hadn’t conducted a background investigation since they hired him, but noted there haven’t been any complaints about him, KSNV-TV reported.
Police asked any parents whose child may have suffered inappropriate contact by the bus driver to contact the department’s sexual assault division. But LVMPD warned parents to be careful in discussing the matter with their kids.
“Do NOT attempt to interrogate or question your child yourself,” the department wrote in a Facebook post on Thursday night. “We know that is a difficult request, but we do not want you to compromise the investigation in any way.”
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