A Hispanic teacher with a history of inappropriately touching children has been arrested on charges of sexually abusing two boys at a Queens elementary school

The Latino teacher, Wilbert Cortez, 49, touched the genitals and the buttocks of an 8-year-old and a 9-year-old over their clothes in his classroom at Public School 174 in Rego Park on at least two occasions during the 2010-11 school year. In 2000, Cortez was found to have touched the buttocks of two male students at another school in Queens by the school system’s special commissioner of investigation. While a letter was placed in his file detailing the conduct, he never faced criminal charges, the authorities said. Cortez was charged with two counts of engaging in repeated sexual conduct with a child and two counts of endangering a child’s welfare, the police said. He was the third public primary-school employee to be charged recently with sex crimes involving children. Cortez has been a teacher in the city schools since 1990 and has taught at P.S. 174 since 2000, the Education Department said.