The owner of a now defunct Massachusetts circus school was found dead a day after he was convicted of assaulting two of his former juvenile students.
Steven A. Santos, 48, was scheduled for sentencing on Thursday on five counts of indecent assault and battery on a child 14 or older and one count of ssault and battery, The Enterprise reported.
The charges claimed he sexually assaulted two students, then ages 15 and 16, at his home in Whitman in 2020.
Santos was convicted by a jury on March 18, and a judge released him to home confinement with GPS monitoring, against the recommendation of prosecutors. He was found dead the next day, and the day after that, his defense attorney filed a motion to vacate the guilty verdict and drop charges against him due to his death.
Officials have not revealed how he died.
Santos was the owner of Simply Circus in Newton. The two teens began training with him in 2019.
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[Featured image: Steven Santos/Whitman Police Department]