LA Teacher Charged with Horrific Child Sex Crimes

A Los Angeles teacher has been charged with molesting 23 kids aged between 6 and 10, allegedly spoonfeeding them semen and covering them with cockroaches.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has revealed that a former teacher tied up and gagged 23 children, put cockroaches in their mouths and posed in photos with them – all in his classroom.

Mark Berndt, 61, has been at the Miramonte Elementary School, which serves poor, mainly Hispanic children, for more than 30 years. He was arrested and charged earlier this week, with his bail set to $2.3 million. The district attorney’s office said Berndt has been charged with committing lewd acts with 23 boys and girls ages 6 to 10, reports Fox News.

A film processor handed over about 40 photographs to the authorities that showed blindfolded children in a classroom with their mouths taped shut — after which an investigation began. Some of the photos were explicitly graphic with some of the implements depicted in them later being tested positive for semen.

The department also revealed that some of the photos even showed cockroaches on the children’s mouths and faces.

Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy said:

“I am sickened and horrified by the behavior of Mark Berndt.”

The investigation later moved to Berndt’s home, where the sheriff’s department were said to have found more than 100 similar photographs depicting children. They also found a DVD depicting adult sexual bondage activity “which mirrored the bondage-type photos of the children.”

However, the department said:

“The adults in the bondage video were not identified and the images in that video are not a crime.”

Berndt has been charged with committing lewd acts upon 23 children between 2008 and 2010. While the incidents occurred during school hours, not all the children were Berndt’s students.

Sheriff’s Lt. Carlos Marquez of the Special Victims Bureau explained that none of the alleged victims told anybody about the incidents.

“They didn’t know they were being violated in that manner. They just thought it was a game,” Marquez said.

After the police informed the school district, Berndt was immediately fired.

However, many parents of children at the school have been questioning why they weren’t told of the teacher allegations sooner, reports the Los Angeles Times has reported

Kimberly Kirklin, 32, said she quizzed each of her six children who attend Miramonte immediately after the shocking news broke. While she was secure that her children had been unharmed, she was surprised to have heard of the events at the school.

Heidy Morales, who has two children at the school, said she hadn’t heard anything about the accusations until hearing of it in the news.

“This is my first time hearing of that,” she said. “It’s scary. I don’t know what to say.”

She believes that the school should have informed parents immediately after they learned about the photos.

“I would have taken my daughter away from this school.”

Comments

Kevin

February 2, 2012 at 5:16 pm

I just don’t understand how this could be. He was doing this in the classroom! How did this happen? I’m not even blaming the school, as such, except for the lateness in notifying the parents, but we should be teaching kids to seek help from authority figures when stuff like that happens. And we need to make sure that those in authority take these allegations seriously.

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concerned

February 3, 2012 at 8:36 am

I don’t understand how this could happen. Did the admin of the school never visit this “teacher’s” classroom? That is a recurrent problem with veteran “teachers.” It is assumed since they have so many years of experience, they don’t need to be monitored. RIDICULOUS! Admin should be ashamed and held accountable!

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Bill Bledsoe

February 3, 2012 at 3:08 pm

SICKO!!! Both the teacher and the qualiity of non-administration!

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thoroughly_disgusted

February 3, 2012 at 8:20 pm

I find it hard to believe that none of these children told the administrators, their parents, or other children. I’m sure they told and they were ignored. This is why perverts continue to engage in this dehumanizing behavior. The folks in authority deny, deny, deny and only act when there is a visual or audio evidence that simply cannot be denied. This is particularly true for more vulnerable populations such as non-white people, women, children and the elderly.

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Dave Wallace

February 16, 2012 at 6:32 pm

I am a former teacher and a parent of three children and my wife is an educator. If this teacher is gulity of this it is horrific and he should be prosecuted! That being said, after reading the article , I don’t really see any hard physical evidence that would come close to being suficient to make a case! In the mean time, excellent teachers are being painted with a broad brush as if all teachers are inferior and are not doing their jobs.. Teaching is a thankless job and 99 percent of the nations educators are doing a job that many couldn’t couldn’t and one that many parents don’t do .. let law take it’s course, this is America!

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- Dokuz
  
  February 28, 2012 at 12:52 am
  
  Not sure which you you’re rfeirreng to I’m not a principal.But regarding what the hell else [they're] doing principals have a lot of other work responsibilities aside from evaluating teachers. Among other things, they supervise all of the staff and students in the building (which in many places means responsibility for several hundred individuals); administer their school’s budget; manage the testing data reporting requirements imposed by the district, state, and federal government; handle discipline issues; work with parents and community members; participate in district trainings and meetings; plan and implement curriculum and instructional programs; etc. All of these require a lot of work, work that grows when support staff are cut. Also, the planning and management aspects of the job aren’t limited to when students are present. Like teachers, principals work in the evenings, on weekends, and during the summer. If it looks easy to you, maybe you should give it a try before you judge
  
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Lisa

February 26, 2012 at 7:28 pm

Oh my…that last one is kind of like “Fruit Salad” from the Wiggles. It just stays with you until you reach a level of innasity. At least it’s “Fruit Salad” with a level of just plain fun. LOL. So fun.

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CA Supreme Court Finds Schools Liable for Hiring Abusers

March 15, 2012 at 1:46 pm

[...] School district which is facing a number of similar lawsuits stemming from the recent arrest of the Miramonte Elementary School teacher Mark Berndt. Berndt was charged with 23 counts of lewd acts upon a [...]

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