$50-million settlement reached in Rialto Superfund site cleanup

Settlements worth a combined $50 million have been reached over the cleanup of a 160-acre Superfund site in Rialto, where the water supply was contaminated as companies manufactured munitions, fireworks and rocket motors, federal authorities said.

The Environmental Protection Agency announced the two settlements Wednesday involving the B.F. Goodrich Superfund site and said a dozen entities were involved in the settlement, including San Bernardino County and the cities of Rialto and Colton.

After the site was sold by the U.S. Army in 1946, it was used by a number of companies, including defense contractors and fireworks manufacturers, according to the EPA's website. Pollution from the area was discovered in 1991, prompting the cities of Rialto and Colton and area water districts to shut down contaminated wells and install treatment equipment.

Two chemicals — trichloroethylene and perchlorate — were found in the groundwater, the EPA said. Perchlorate, used in rocket fuel, batteries and fireworks, can interfere with thyroid function and cause birth defects. Trichloroethylene, an industrial cleaning solvent, can damage the nervous system, liver and lungs.

The area was declared a Superfund site in 2009.

New litigation related to alleged lewd conduct at Miramonte

Attorneys filed four more lawsuits this week in connection with lewd-conduct charges against a former teacher at Miramonte Elementary School.

The litigation, filed Monday by the firm Manly & Stewart, accuses the Los Angeles Unified School District of negligence, fraud, sexual harassment, gender violence and infliction of emotional distress for failing to protect students from veteran instructor Mark Berndt.

Berndt, 61, taught one of the students for two years and supervised the others after school, according to the lawsuits. In these cases and others, he’s accused of spoon-feeding his semen to blind-folded children as part of what he allegedly called a tasting game. He’s also accused of putting cockroaches on children's faces and feeding them semen-tainted cookies.

PHOTOS: Parent uproar over sex-abuse claims

Authorities began investigating Berndt after a drugstore clerk gave police bizarre photos of students taking part in these acts.

Attorney John Manly said Tuesday that he sued on behalf of four students because “over 100 children allege they were victimized by this man, and there’s no credible explanation of how this happened."

"The only people who have investigated the school district is the school district,” he added.

Manly accused L.A. Unified of trying to withhold information that is embarrassing or that could increase its liability. The attorney scheduled a Wednesday morning news conference to discuss the litigation.

FULL COVERAGE: Teacher sex-abuse investigations

District officials have defended their response. They said they have provided counseling and help for affected families, cooperated fully with law enforcement and acted quickly and comprehensively to address shortcomings in their response to allegations. The district also replaced the entire staff of the school, located in Florence-Firestone, for the second half of the 2011-12 school year.

Berndt was arrested in January but removed from the school a year earlier.

Last week, officials said that 126 students and 63 parents have filed Miramonte-related claims for damages against L.A. Unified. There also are two other lawsuits on behalf of 33 students and one on behalf of 11 parents.

Berndt faces 23 counts of lewd conduct and is being held in lieu of $23-million bail. He has pleaded not guilty.

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Photo: Students are escorted out of Miramonte Elementary School in January, a day after teacher Mark Berndt was arrested on charges of lewd conduct with children. Credit: Damian Dovarganes / Associated Press

Chula Vista teacher arrested on child pornography charges

A first-grade teacher in Chula Vista has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography and attempting to lure young boys to send him nude pictures, the San Diego Police Department said Tuesday.

John Kinloch, 41, a teacher at Wolf Canyon Elementary School, pretended to be a 13-year-old girl on a youth-oriented website in an effort to get boys to send him naked pictures of themselves, police said.

Kinloch was immediately placed on leave by the school district.

He was arrested Sunday after a search warrant was served on his home by the multi-agency San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

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Bill to speed up teacher dismissals is revived

A state senator has reintroduced legislation intended to speed the dismissal of teachers for gross misconduct.

Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) acted in the wake of a state audit concluding that current laws added excessive cost and time to the firing process.

“The state auditor confirms that the dismissal process established in state law is inconsistent, too lengthy, too costly and delays the timely resolution of child-abuse cases,” Padilla said in a statement. “I believe strongly that when there are allegations of abuse, timely resolution is important to all parties, particularly children and their parents.”

The new legislation, SB 10, will closely resemble an unsuccessful bill advanced last year by Padilla, said his spokesman John D. Mann on Monday. The new bill’s text was not yet posted Monday afternoon, but the earlier bill shifted firing authority from an independent state panel to the school district in which a teacher is employed. Teachers still could get an outside review of their cases before an administrative law judge, but the judge’s decision would not be binding.

The bill defined gross misconduct as sex, drug and child abuse offenses.

Last year, Padilla’s bill was opposed by labor groups including the California Teachers Assn. and United Teachers Los Angeles. The unions asserted that the bill would have undermined appropriate due-process rights for teachers.

The state audit, released last week, also called for the Legislature to establish a tracking system for non-teaching employees who work in schools. Without it, non-teachers fired for misconduct could successfully apply to other school systems for jobs, auditors noted.

The state already maintains a system for verifying that a teacher is in good standing, but until recently, L.A. Unified failed to file reports on teachers in a timely manner.

Both the audit and the legislation came in the wake of the arrest of a veteran Miramonte Elementary School teacher for lewd conduct earlier this year.

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L.A. Now Live: LAUSD slow to report 144 teacher misconduct cases

An audit released Thursday sharply criticized Los Angeles school officials for failing to promptly report nearly 150 cases of suspected teacher misconduct -- including allegations of sexual contact with students -- to state authorities as required by law.

Times education reporter Howard Blume will join L.A. Now Live at 9 a.m. to discuss the audit's findings and the Los Angeles Unified School District's response.

The findings come 10 months after the LAUSD was rocked by the arrest of a teacher at Miramonte Elementary School for allegedly spoon-feeding semen to students in a classroom.

DOCUMENT: Read the audit

At the time, district officials acknowledged that they did not swiftly send all serious misconduct allegations to the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which keeps a database that school systems use to verify teaching licenses.

The audit found that L.A. Unified submitted at least 144 cases of alleged teacher misconduct more than a year later than required, 31 of them more than three years late.

As a result, the commission was unable to "determine promptly whether it was appropriate to revoke the teachers' certificates and thus prevent the individuals from working in other school districts," according to the report.

In one case, the district reported an alleged sexual relationship between a teacher and a student in March -- 3 1/2 years after the teacher left the district over the incident, the audit said. The "lack of timely reporting" prevented the commission from taking steps to keep the teacher from working elsewhere, it said.

Audit faults LAUSD for not reporting charges of sexual misconduct

California auditors have concluded that Los Angeles school officials have been slow to act on some allegations of employee sexual misconduct and often failed to notify the state agency that oversees the credentials of teachers -- a notification required by law.

The review, released Thursday, was conducted by the California state auditor at the behest of the  Legislature’s audit committee. It was commissioned in response to fallout from the arrest of a veteran Miramonte Elementary School teacher on 23 counts of lewd conduct.

Authorities suspect Mark Berndt, 61,  of feeding cookies tainted with his semen to students, among other wrongdoing. Previous alleged questionable behavior by Berndt had not resulted in any discipline prior to his arrest.

DOCUMENT: Read the full LAUSD audit

Berndt, who is being held in lieu of $23 million bail, has pleaded not guilty.

L.A. Unified did not "properly notify" the state’s Commission on Teacher Credentialing "when required to do so, such as when an employee with a certificate to teach is dismissed while an allegation of misconduct is pending," the auditors wrote. The review “found that the district failed to report as required at least 144 cases — including cases involving employee misconduct against students — submitted a year or more late when the district finally did report them.”

Of these cases, “31 were more than three years late when they were reported to the commission. As a result of the delays in reporting these cases, the commission was not able to determine promptly whether it was appropriate to revoke the teachers’ certificates and thus prevent the individuals from working in other school districts,” auditors asserted.

Former martial arts teacher guilty of molesting 11 of his students

A former martial arts instructor and soccer coach was convicted Monday of sexually assaulting 11 of his students.

Luis Alberto Pineda, 31, was a martial arts instructor in Fullerton and a soccer coach for a youth league between 2005 and 2010, according to the Orange County district attorney's office.

The Anaheim man molested 10 boys and one girl after practices, games or when he took them out to the movies or for dinner, according to prosecutors.

The victims included a 9-year-old girl and two boys, 11 and 14. 

The assaults were reported to the Fullerton Police Department, which alerted the Anaheim Police Department. Pineda was arrested on Aug. 5, 2010.

A jury found Pineda  guilty of 17 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child under 14, two felony counts of sodomy by force, and multiple other sodomy, oral copulation and sexual penetration counts.

He faces a maximum sentence of 255 years in prison, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

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Photo: Luis Alberto Pineda. Credit: Orange County district attorney's office

 

 

O.C. teachers who had group sex with student get probation

A married couple -- both Orange County teachers --  were sentenced to probation Thursday for having group sex with a 17-year-old student who prosecutors said the teachers plied with alcohol.

Gay Davidson-Shepard, 60, and Daniel Alma Shepard, 63, pleaded guilty in August to various felony counts related to having a sexual relationship with a minor.

Davidson-Shepard was sentenced to three years formal probation with a four-year-jail sentence stayed, and her husband was sentenced to three years formal probation with a two-year jail sentence stayed, according to a statement from the Orange County district attorney's office.

Both were ordered to complete counseling and 60 days of community service, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Davidson-Shepard met the student when he was attending Westminster High School. The couple then "groomed" the young man by inviting him over to their Huntington Beach home to drink alcohol, eat, play board games and watch movies.

One day, prosecutors said, the couple got into a hot tub naked and encouraged the boy to join them, and they engaged in sexual acts, according to prosecutors.

The unlawful sexual relationship continued until the youth turned 18, at which point the relationship was no longer illegal, prosecutors said.

Principal arrested for allegedly having sex with student

The principal at a high school in San Bernardino County has been arrested on suspicion of having a sexual relationship with a former student that began while she was a minor, authorities said Tuesday.

Brian Garrett Joseph, 38, the principal of Etiwanda High School, allegedly began the relationship with the victim when she was a student at the school, according to authorities. She is now 18.

On the school's website, Joseph lauds the positive learning environment on campus. "We believe in continuous improvement in each and every one of our students and their ability to learn and achieve," he said.

Detectives served a search warrant at Joseph's Corona home, where he was arrested early Tuesday morning, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in a statement. He was being held in lieu of $25,000 bail.

Anyone with information is asked to call detectives at (909) 387-3615.

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Photo: Brian Garrett Joseph. Credit: San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department

O.C. teacher sentenced to four years for illegal sex with student

An Orange County high school teacher was sentenced Friday to four years in prison for meeting up with a 17-year-old student at motels and in a riverbed for illegal sex.

Scott Adrian Peterson, 50, of Anaheim, pleaded guilty in August to two felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse, four felony counts of oral copulation of a minor, and two felony counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object of a minor.

He was ordered to serve 16 months in jail and the remaining three years under mandatory supervision, according to a statement by the Orange County district attorney's office.

Peterson met the 17-year-old student, identified only as Jane Doe, while teaching Spanish at Orange High School.

Investigators say he groomed the victim by spending time with her outside school at Disneyland and at social events. In April 2010 he began sending explicit photos and texts to the victim.

Peterson regularly met with the teenager at a motel and in an Orange County riverbed to engage in sex acts. The girl's family became suspicious and found sexual text messages on her phone, and notified police.

The teacher was taken into custody as police watched the two emerge from an Orange County riverbed.

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Photo: Scott Adrian Peterson. Credit: Orange County district attorney's office