Moreno Valley School Board Member Charged with Rape, Pimping, Pandering

A Moreno Valley Unified School District board member was arrested Wednesday evening and charged with 11 felonies, including rape, pimping, and pandering involving four women and two underage girls, a District Attorney's spokesman said.

Mike Luis Rios, 42, was arrested without incident just before 6 p.m. Wednesday April 4, when police pulled him over in his vehicle near his home on Palm Shadows Drive in Moreno Valley.

Rios was charged with six counts of pandering, three counts of pimping, and two counts of rape by force or fear, according to the Riverside County District Attorney's Office. The alleged rape victims are adults.

"Pandering is the attempt to get someone to work as a prostitute while pimping is deriving proceeds from someone working as a prostitute," a District Attorney's spokesman said in a statement. "In this case, it is alleged that three adult women worked for Rios as prostitutes. One adult and the two juveniles did not."

An investigation by the Riverside County District Attorney's Office shows Rios "used a variety of means to try to get the four women and two girls to work as prostitutes for him," the statement said.

Rios allegedly told at least one woman he was a member of the Moreno Valley school board and asked her if she needed a job, according to the District Attorney's Office. Another woman answered an online ad for a job.

Rios allegedly offered one of the juvenile girls the use of his Hummer vehicle if she would work for him, according to the District Attorney's Office. Rios "met the other juvenile through an Internet ad she had placed for prostitution and Rios offered her the use of his vehicle and his house if she would work for him," the D.A.'s statement said.

Rios is a suspect in another pending criminal case in which he has been charged with two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and one count of dissuading a witness, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Rios is accused of firing a gun at two people outside his house in February, but neither victim was hit, according to the D.A. The shooting occurred as the result of an altercation Rios had earlier in the evening.

Rios posted bail in that case. A felony settlement conference in that case is scheduled for April 29, according to the District Attorney's Office.

Both cases against Rios are being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Michael Brusselback of the Special Prosecutions Section.

Moreno Valley is between the San Gorgonio Pass and the city of Riverside, about 65 miles east of Los Angeles.