LYNWOOD — After nearly six hours of testimony from five witnesses Tuesday, Compton Superior Court Judge Ricardo Ocampo ruled that there is enough evidence against former Firebaugh High School Principal Jonas Silverio to make him stand trial.

Silverio is facing 18 counts of committing lewd acts on children. Silverio is due back in court on Nov. 3.

In a courtroom filled with his family, friends and other supporters, five women told about encounters they had with Silverio when he was a teacher or principal and they were students.

Silverio was placed on administrative leave by the Lynwood school board in May and resigned as Firebaugh principal June 10. He was arrested July 8 at Los Angeles International Airport as he returned from a trip to the Philippines. He has been jailed ever since.

Two of the five witnesses who testified Tuesday are former Firebaugh students. A third attended Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe Springs when Silverio was a teacher there. The fourth witness was a student at Precious Blood Catholic School in Los Angeles who testified that Silverio, who was her computer teacher at the time, would caress her face and touch her thighs when she was 12 years old.

The fifth witness was the daughter of another teacher at Precious Blood who helped Silverio as a volunteer in the computer lab at the school.

The witnesses were all identified by their first name in court. As a policy, The Wave does not print the names of possible sexual abuse victims.

Silverio’s attorney, Harold Greenberg, challenged the testimony of the fifth witness, saying the incidents occurred more than 10 years ago. She is not considered a victim in the case due to statute of limitations, but Judge Ocampo allowed her to testify anyway.

She testified that Silverio on one occasion “came up behind me when I was putting something on a shelf and touched my breasts, first over my shirt then under.”

“Then he turned me around and kissed me. … Then he reached for my shorts and I asked him what he was doing,” she said. “He untied my shorts and I kept saying ‘no, what are you doing,’ but he just covered my mouth and told me to” be quiet.

“Then he led me to the ground and unzipped my shorts and pulled them down, then he [undid his pants].”

The witness said she was terrified and closed her eyes. The classroom bell sounded and Silverio “just jumped up, put his pants back on and said ‘you should go,’” she testified.

She testified it was a year before she told her parents, who filed report with the Los Angeles Police Department, but no one ever followed up on it, and the case was dropped.

Asked by prosecutor Stephanie Chavez why she didn’t report the incident sooner, the witness said: “I was in shock,” she said. “Plus, my mom worked there and [Silverio’s] mother was my mom’s boss … so I went off to college and tried to forget about it.”

One of the former Firebaugh students testified that on several occasions Silverio touched her inappropriately and made her feel uncomfortable. A member of the varsity girl’s volleyball team, which Silverio coached at the time, she also said Silverio would make sexually suggestive comments to her and other team members and would text them late at night.

The former student said she sometimes baby-sat for Silverio’s children and that Silverio often hugged her from behind, tried to kiss her and put his hands under her shirt to rub her stomach.

During cross examination, the witness said she didn’t know if reporting Silverio would make a difference. “I didn’t know what my rights were,” she said. “I didn’t know … if it had to be physical to be considered sexual molestation. … I didn’t say anything at first, because I hadn’t become emotionally stable enough to say anything yet.”

The other former Firebaugh student testified that she met Silverio when she was 13 at Lynwood Middle School, where she played for him on the volleyball team.

In her testimony, she said that Silverio was always trying to hug her and touch her and often asked her to kiss him.

She said at times it seemed that he was being playful, but there came a time when she thought he crossed the line.

She told the court about an incident that took place in his office at Firebaugh, where she found herself underneath him struggling for him not to kiss her, but that he had her pinned down by her hands above her head.

“Were you telling him to stop?” the prosecutor asked. “Yes,” she responded.

She also testified that Silverio told her she couldn’t have a boyfriend, because of him and that during a volleyball tournament at Catalina Island, Silverio also asked her to call her parents and tell them the tournament would be going over to the next day, “so we could spend more time together.”

She said that she never kissed Silverio, but that he forcefully kissed her several times. “I don’t remember how many times,” she said.

The former Santa Fe High student told the court about several instances when Silverio would caress her arms and her legs and that once he touched her buttocks.

She also told the court she considered Silverio more like a friend than a coach and that he often asked for a kiss and a back massage. She also testified that she introduced Silverio to a 15-year-old friend and that Silverio later told her he was having sex with the friend.

Under cross examination, Greenberg asked the witness if Silverio reported her to the school and to her parents for ditching class and for being in possession of marijuana.

“No, he didn’t,” she answered.

“Isn’t it true that because Silverio reported you, that you were removed from the school,” Greenberg asked. “I wasn’t removed from the school because I was using marijuana, I was removed because it was found in my backpack,” she answered.

Under redirect examination, Chavez asked: “Was the marijuana found before or after you reported Silverio’s inappropriateness to the principal?”

“Definitely after,” the witness answered.

Greenberg did not put any witnesses on the stand on behalf of Silverio.

In ordering the former principal to stand trail, Ocampo said the massaging, the hugging, the touching, asking for kisses, “it all goes to show his intent.”