Los Angeles, CA: Elementary Teacher Charged with Molesting Two Dozen Students & Taking Bondage Pics

[Samstwitch]

Teacher Charged with Taking Bondage Pics of Students

January 31, 2012 - A former elementary school teacher in Los Angeles has been arrested for allegedly molesting nearly two dozen children after photos of students posed in bondage positions were passed to the Sheriff's Department.

Mark Berndt, 61, a teacher with over 30 years experience at Miramonte Elementary School in south Los Angeles, is charged with molesting 23 children, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Police began the investigation after a photo processing facility passed along suspicious images depicting students blindfolded with their mouths covered in tape. Female students were depicted with a blue plastic spoon containing "an unknown clear/white liquid" in front of their mouths, while other students were pictured with live cockroaches on their faces. In some photos, Berndt had his arm around the children or his hand over their mouths.

Police found the spoon, along with an empty container in the trash in Berndt's classroom and, through DNA testing, determined that both contained Berndt's semen.

The students were between the ages of 7 and 10 years old when the alleged crimes occurred, police said.

Authorities launched a widespread sex crime investigation, interviewing current and former students and school employees and searching Berndt's home. They recovered a total of 390 photographs and an adult "sexual bondage" film which mirrored the photos of the children, according to a statement by the sheriff's department today.

More than 26 children from the 390 photographs have been identified; an additional 10 children have not yet been identified, police said.

Shortly after the investigation began, in March, 2011, Berndt was fired from the school. The school did not immediately return calls for comment today.

Berndt was arrested Monday and charged with 23 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child. He is being held at LA County jail in lieu of $2.3 million bail.
SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/teacher-charged-taking-bondage-pics-students-163621853--abc-news.html

SICK, SICK, SICK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Poor defenseless children!

 

[Crethox]

Sadly these things happen all around the world.

 

[Samstwitch]

Yes, and it's so awful. I'm sure there are more victims who will come forward as word about this predator gets out. That's why I posted this article.

 

[Samstwitch]

2nd Teacher from LA school arrested on sex claim

LOS ANGELES (AP) February 3, 2012 — A second teacher at an inner-city elementary school where a teacher is accused of committing lewd acts on 23 children was arrested Friday on suspicion of fondling two girls in his classroom.

Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Mike Parker said Martin B. Springer, 49, of Alhambra was arrested four days after allegations surfaced against the first teacher, but there was no known connection between the two cases. Springer was being held on $2 million bail.
The expanding case has shocked the nation and thrown a chill into its second-largest school district, with 650,000 students across hundreds of campuses.

Parker said the victims in the second case were about 7 and 8 years old and were fondled once each in a classroom at Miramonte Elementary School during the past three years.

Detectives interviewed Springer and the alleged victims on Thursday and had him under surveillance. He was arrested Friday as he exited a school district building in South Los Angeles, Parker said.

Detectives anticipate that more victims might come forward, he said. A phone message left at Springer's home was not immediately returned.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy said the district plans to fire Springer next week. "We are prepared to fire him next week and we'll do that at the next board meeting for inappropriate conduct and inappropriately touching students," the superintendent told KTTV.

In a related development, a lawyer filed a claim against the district stating that he intended to file a lawsuit alleging an unidentified girl ate a sugar cookie laced with the semen of the first teacher arrested, Mark Berndt.

Earlier this week, Berndt, who worked at the school for 32 years, was charged with committing lewd acts on 23 children, ages 6 to 10, between 2005 and 2010. He remains jailed on $23 million bail and could face life in prison if convicted.

Lawyer Raymond Boucher, whose Beverly Hills firm specializes in sexual abuse lawsuits against school districts, religious institutions and hospitals, said the legal claim of behalf of "Jane Doe 1" alleges the district did not take adequate steps to prevent Berndt from repeatedly abusing children after officials received complaints about him.

After news broke early Friday about Springer being removed from the classroom, several parents took their children out of the school.
Ida Santana said her sister called her and told her to pick up her nephew.

"It's hard to leave our kids here," Santana said. "We can't trust the teachers no more. Now there's another teacher."

Santana said the family is unsure where the boy will be going to school from now on.

The development involving the second teacher was made public a day after authorities acknowledged that 18 years ago, a 10-year-old girl claimed Berndt tried to fondle her.

Prosecutors declined to file to charges against Berndt in the 1993 report, saying they didn't have enough evidence. Berndt, who denied the allegation at the time, was never arrested.

The details of that case and other claims by two former students about strange behavior by Berndt surfaced just three days after his arrest.
The allegations raised further questions about why he wasn't disciplined by school officials, who have been lambasted by some parents for waiting a year to reveal that Berndt was suspected of blindfolding children and feeding them his own semen in his classroom in what children were allegedly told was a tasting game.

School officials and investigators said proper procedures were followed to investigate and build a case against the teacher. The investigation of Berndt began in the fall of 2010 when a film processor became suspicious about the photographs and turned them over to investigators who notified the school district. Berndt was immediately removed from classwork in January. The Board of Education voted to fire him in a closed session, which he challenged, before resigning.
SOURCE: http://news.yahoo.com/2nd-teacher-la-school-arrested-sex-claim-001831998.html

 

[Samstwitch]

UPDATE! Click on green Headline to Link:

Official: Faculty to be removed at LA school

LOS ANGELES (AP) February 6, 2012 — The entire faculty at an elementary school where two teachers were arrested on suspicion of lewd conduct will be removed while the school district investigates, the Los Angeles school superintendent told parents Monday. Superintendent John Deasy told parents and media on Monday night that the Miramonte Elementary School staffers are being replaced because a full investigation of allegations is disruptive and staffers require support to get through the scandal, too. An entire staff has been trained to come into classrooms at Miramonte to take over teaching for the time being, and there will be a psychiatric social worker in every classroom to help students and staff cope with any issues.

"The last thing I'm worried about is a budget issue," Deasy said. "The Number One thing I'm worried about is the students."

School officials canceled classes at the school on Tuesday and Wednesday as a cooling-off period, said district spokesman Tom Waldman. Deasy emphasized that all staff members being brought into the classroom went through a "very rigorous screening process."

Maria Jimenez, 51, said the parents whose children are enrolled at Miramonte are divided over the move. "Some are in favor. Others are against it because they did this without advising us or consulting us," Jimenez said.

The move follows the arrest of two Miramonte teachers: Mark Berndt was charged last week with committing lewd acts on 23 children, while Martin Springer was arrested Friday on suspicion of fondling two girls in his classroom.

More than a quarter of the students at Miramonte were absent from school Monday while parents demanded more protection at the school, with attendance reaching just 72 percent, according to figures from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

About three dozen parents and supporters protested in front of the main doors of the school earlier Monday, some carrying a banner that read, "We the parents demand our children be protected from lewd teacher acts." The protest was an unusual event in the poor, overwhelmingly Latino neighborhood, where many parents and students struggle with the English language.

Many people finally gathered around former state senator-turned-lawyer Martha Escutia, who lectured them in Spanish about how to organize for the media and suggested a catchy name for their fledgling movement: Mothers of Miramonte. As night fell, about 100 angry parents marched from the elementary school to the nearby meeting with administrators.
School police watched and sheriff's deputies were on hand, but there was no violence.

Berndt, who worked at the school for 32 years, was charged with committing lewd acts on 23 children, ages 6 to 10, between 2005 and 2010.
The acts cited by authorities include blindfolding children and feeding them his own semen in his classroom in what children were allegedly told was a tasting game. Berndt, 61, remains jailed on $23 million bail and could face life in prison if convicted.

Springer, 49, was arrested on suspicion of fondling two girls in his classroom. He was being held on $2 million bail. Springer taught at Miramonte for his entire career, which started in 1986, the district said. He taught second grade. The school board is scheduled to discuss firing him in a closed-door meeting Tuesday.

Investigators said they know of no connection between the Miramonte cases. Berndt and Springer know each other and took their classes on at least two joint field trips in the past decade, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The district set up a toll-free hotline on Monday to receive reports of suspected abuse at Miramonte, said school board President Monica Garcia in a statement. Garcia added that the district would step up efforts to ensure students and staff realized the importance of reporting misconduct.

In the same school district, a janitor at a San Fernando Valley elementary school was arrested on suspicion of committing a lewd act with a child on a campus. Paul Adame, 37, was taken into custody after a mother told police on Sunday that he had inappropriate contact with her child during school hours Friday at Germain Elementary School in the Chatsworth area north of Los Angeles, police Capt. Kris Pitcher said at a news conference.

The captain declined to provide details but urged anyone who might know of other possible victims to contact police.

Adame was booked and released on $100,000 bail Monday. It could not be immediately determined if he had an attorney.
There was no immediate connection between the arrest of the janitor and the cases at Miramonte, which is 15 miles away in an unincorporated county area of South Los Angeles.