Alleged Molester Keeps His Past Behind a Legal Wall

Say you own a small business. One of your employees is stealing. You confront him and he leaves. The theft was relatively small, not worth the expense of a lawsuit. You consider yourself fortunate to be rid of a bad egg.

A short while later another company calls you, checking on the guy’s references. Do you mention the theft?

My bet is that you don’t. This time, your former employee could sue you --perhaps for defamation of character or invasion of privacy or for preventing him from getting a new job. And even though the guy is a thief, a court of law has found him guilty of no crime.

Legal experts would advise you to keep your mouth closed. Even if you win, lawsuits cost money and time.

This kind of thing happens time and again, the byproduct of an imperfect legal system that never protects everybody’s rights all of the time. You stonewall, the guy gets a job, and then he steals again. Life stumbles on.

Now change the facts of the case by several degrees, although the legal premise remains the same.

A junior high school teacher, in the city of Orange, is arrested for felony child molestation. This actually happened in early 1982.

The district attorney’s office charges him, initially, with 41 counts. One of his female students, the prosecution contends, was repeatedly abused.

I looked at the court files on this case. The prosecution’s evidence was graphic and frightening. Included were obscene notes the defendant allegedly wrote to the victim about what he would like to do to her the next time around.

The defense brought out its own heavy guns. Many character witnesses--students, teachers and friends--testified as to what a good guy this man really was. He was married, with two daughters of his own. The counts were reduced in a preliminary hearing, then later dismissed.

But the D.A.’s office felt strongly about the case. Deputy Dist. Atty. Jan Sturla filed again, this time on 32 counts. Three of those were later thrown out.

Then a new deputy D.A. took over the prosecution and moved that the charges be dropped. The case was dismissed, if not quite closed. The prosecution felt the time and money involved just didn’t justify any further ado.

The Orange Unified School District, however, wanted this guy out of its schools. The teacher, too, said he would rather be someplace else.

A quiet agreement was worked out. The district bought out the remainder of his contract and agreed “not to disclose the reasons for the resignation, nor the facts surrounding the resignation.”

If potential employers called the district inquiring about its former employee, they were to be told that the resignation was voluntary, that the teacher left for personal reasons and that his performance evaluations were satisfactory.

This, really, is S.O.P. Attorneys have built careers around crafting just such terms. But is it right? That, for the most part, is what the courts avoid trying to find out. They are there to uphold the law, strictly according to code.

I found out about this case because the alleged victim, now 24 years old, called me, quite upset. The man who was charged with molesting her is still teaching school, this time in Whittier. He has been for years.

Court documents show that his employers in Whittier never checked with Orange Unified, not even to confirm that he had held his former job.

Here’s where the legal story picks up. The teacher, after being turned down for five jobs since Orange, sensed that there was something wrong.

“Is there anything you would like to tell me about your resignation from Orange Unified School District?” one Anaheim high school principal asked him during a follow-up interview.

This, to the teacher, was the first red flag. Orange Unified officials, he later found out, were telling potential employers they weren’t at liberty to discuss the “case” regarding his resignation and that they should contact the teacher if they wanted the details.

Then the teacher called his former principal at home. He said he objected to the word case , which implied something taboo. According to court records, the principal suggested he “be a man . . . and tell the truth.”

“Do you think I’m guilty?” the teacher asked. The principal said that he didn’t know.

“I would have never let myself get into that situation,” the principal said.

“You’re preventing me from getting a job,” the teacher went on.

“You have done that to yourself,” came the reply.

Bingo! The principal’s words were all that the teacher needed to hear. He sued Orange Unified for breach of contract, after he had already accepted the Whittier job, and he won.

An arbitrator awarded him $31,475 in December, 1988--$25,000 of that for emotional damages. The arbitrator called the principal’s comments “outrageous, causing severe emotional distress of a substantial and enduring nature.”

I don’t share the arbitrator’s dismay. I am looking at this from another side.

As a potential employer, I would want to know if a job applicant had been placed under arrest. As a parent, I would want to know if my daughter’s teacher had been accused of child molestation.

But the law is the law, imperfect at best. The rights of a few trample the rights of the rest.

The arbitrator ruled that Orange Unified broke a legal agreement. Except now the school district, which says it did nothing wrong, has asked for a trial. It is scheduled for August.

The teacher’s lawyer told me that his client was satisfied with the arbitrator’s award, but now that they will be going back to court they plan to “go for broke.”

The jury, he said, will undoubtedly be told about his client’s arrest, but “I’m going to do everything I can to keep it out. It’s irrelevant.”

The district, meantime, plans to introduce evidence suggesting that its former employee was indeed guilty of molesting a child he was assigned to teach. The alleged victim who called me is expected to take the stand.

“I can’t believe that this man is still teaching,” she said. “I wonder what he has done since. None of this makes sense. It’s not right.”

But that’s the law. I know--we’ve all heard that before.