Upland student teacher jailed for soliciting student for sex

A student teacher at an Upland middle school accused of soliciting a 14-year-old girl for sex was sentenced to 270 days in jail Wednesday after pleading no contest to attempted sexual battery.

Daniel Harold Sundstrom, 47, often stared at the girl in class, offered her a ride home, and befriended her on MySpace before telling her he wanted to have sex with her, according to a statement from the girl read aloud by a prosecutor in court Wednesday.

Sundstrom, of Upland, served as a teacher's assistant in an 8th-grade math class at Pioneer Junior High School for the last quarter of the 2007-2008 school year.

After Sundstrom contacted the girl on MySpace.com -- a popular social-networking Web site -- she told her mother and the mother contacted Upland police.

Police, posing as the girl, exchanged messages with Sundstrom online and arranged a meeting between Sundstrom and the girl at Memorial Park in Upland.

Sundstrom was arrested on June 19, 2008 when he arrived at the park for the meeting.

Prosecutors charged Sundstrom with two felonies and a misdemeanor for his contact with the teen. He agreed to plead no contest to one felony last month as part of a plea bargain with prosecutors.

At the conclusion of Wednesday's sentencing hearing in West Valley Superior Court, Sundstrom -- who had been free on bail -- was taken into custody to serve his jail term.

After his release from West Valley Detention Center, Sundstrom will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, said Deputy District Attorney Jason Anderson.

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In a statement read aloud by Anderson on Wednesday, the girl said Sundstrom stared at her in class and seemed to "pop up" around campus to say hello to her.

One time when the girl was at a restaurant, Sundstrom pulled up in a car and offered her a ride home. She declined the offer, she said in the statement.

Sundstrom "tricked" the girl into adding him as a friend on MySpace by posing as one of her friends from school, the girl said.

Once the two became MySpace friends, Sundstrom -- a married father -- wrote to the girl frequently and told her he wanted to have sex with her.

"He is a sick person," the girl said in her statement. "He needs a lot of help."

The girl said she still has nightmares about Sundstrom.

"Besides your immediate family and closest friends, you can't trust anyone," she said in her statement.