Former Peninsula teacher sentenced to 12 years for molesting students

Joseph Toy, 40, taught computer science at Westborough Middle School for 13 years before his arrest last year.

A former South San Francisco computer science teacher has been sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for inappropriately touching students.

Joseph Toy, 40, taught computer science at Westborough Middle School for 13 years until revelations in April 2018 that he had allegedly molested four students — even after receiving warnings in the past.

In July, Toy pleaded no contest to charges relating to felony child molestation and felony lewd acts with a child. On Thursday, he was sentenced to 12 years, eight months in state prison, along with the requirement that he register as a sex offender. He is also barred from having contact with victims.

Many of the original charges — of which there were 47 — were dropped as part of the plea deal. Toy will also be given credit for 629 days of time served.

Even before he was arrested and charged, Toy had been previously warned by Westborough Middle School administrators to “not touch or put arms around students” based off previous complaints, prosecutors said.

But over the course of 11 months, Toy inappropriately touched four young boys, prosecutors said, including on school grounds. The acts included picking the boys up by their armpits, putting them on his lap and kissing them on the back of the neck and head and touching their bare chests and stomachs.

Three victims were 13 and 14 during the time of the molestation; one was 14.

One boy told another teacher about what had happened, prompting school administrators to call the police on April 25, 2018.

Toy was placed on administrative leave and arrested on May 10 of that year.