LYNWOOD — Jonas Silverio, a former principal of Firebaugh High School, was arrested Wednesday upon arriving from the Philippines at Los Angeles International Airport, according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Silverio is facing 17 counts of lewd acts upon a child, stemming from alleged incidents with three students — one from Whittier High School and two former Firebaugh students. His bail was set at $1 million.

Silverio left the United States on May 18, said Sgt. Dan Scott of the Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Bureau. Detectives and agents from the FBI and the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office arrested Silverio at around 3:30 p.m.

The FBI had flagged his passport and agents were notified as soon as Silverio purchased a ticket for Los Angeles.

Silverio, whose last day on the Lynwood Unified School District’s payroll was June 30, after his letter of resignation was accepted by the school board June 10, served as principal of Firebaugh High School for four years.

He was placed on administrative leave May 12 by the school board amid what at the time was described as a “pending investigation by the Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Bureau.”

School board members in May said they could not confirm or deny the connection between the sheriff’s investigation and Silverio being placed on administrative leave.

Scott said the charges against Silverio go back to 2005. The initial investigation against him began in February.

“It’s the same as child molestation, but child molestation applies to children under the age of 14,” Scott said. “This is a little different, which means the penalty is less severe because the victim[s] were 14 to 15 or older and not under 14 or 15.”

“There could be more recent crimes too, but it’s too early to tell if there are others,” he said. “From what we can tell, the instances have all taken place within the last couple of years.

“When an arrest like this is triggered, additional victims come forward, so we are obviously hoping that anybody who has information about this person’s behavior with volleyball students in particular, but it doesn’t mean that those are the only students … that he [was] targeting, so anybody who was victimized or has knowledge of somebody being victimized by this individual, we urge them to call the Sheriff’s Special Victims Bureau.”

The investigation remained open on Wednesday and was ongoing, Scott said.

He added that detectives had known that Silverio was out of the country, but were not certain he would return.

Detectives have identified three students who were victims of Silverio, Scott said.

Scott said he did not know if the Firebaugh students involved were recent graduates of the school. The Whittier case dates back to 2001.

According to the investigation, Silverio has taught at a number of schools. Victims allegedly can be traced back to a Los Angeles Police Department investigation dating back to 1996 at a private school in Los Angeles.

In the case of the Whittier student, Scott said, there was an investigation conducted by the actual school, but no police report was ever made.

That, Scott said, is not acceptable.

“That is a violation,” he said. “Because teachers and principals have to report suspected child abuse. … They should not be doing investigations. … When a school suspects child abuse, they are mandated to report to law enforcement or to child protective services. They are not supposed to investigate and then decide whether they want to report or not. The trigger comes in when it is first suspected.”

Silverio’s arraignment was postponed until Monday.