Burbank Teacher Gets 6 Months in Jail, Probation in Molestation

A Burbank high school science teacher was sentenced Friday to 180 days in County Jail and five years’ probation for molesting the teenage daughter of a family friend.

In April, Robert G. Goar, 54, pleaded no contest to two felony molestation charges--penetration with a foreign object and a lewd act with a child under 16--on the opening day of his trial.

Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler sentenced Goar to County Jail despite a California Department of Corrections psychological evaluation that recommended only probation, Deputy Dist. Atty. Falomi Pierson said. Goar also was ordered to serve 200 hours of community service.

Goar, a 29-year employee of the Burbank Unified School District, was chairman of the Burroughs High School science department when he was arrested by Los Angeles police on Feb. 21, 1996. The victim, now 15, told detectives that she had been molested both at her mother’s home and at Goar’s Toluca Lake condominium in 1994 and 1995. The girl was not one of Goar’s students.

Pierson said the girl’s mother told the judge she did not want to see Goar sent to prison because he was a trusted friend of the family, adding she believed he would never be allowed to teach again and that would be sufficient punishment.

Goar’s probation prohibits him from being alone with anyone under the age of 18, Pierson said.

It was not immediately known whether Goar has lost his job with the school district. Goar was placed on unpaid mandatory leave of absence after his arrest.