-By Warner Todd Huston
Earlier this year L.A. teacher Robert Pimentel, 57, was arrested accused by several students and one other teacher of sexual misconduct, but now documents seem to prove that L.A. Unified School District officials knew of allegations of sexual misconduct involving Pimentel going as far back as 2009 but took no real action.
One person accusing the school district of not taking action sooner is Luis Carrillo, the lawyer representing the families of the three students from De La Torre Elementary School who allege that Pimentel sexually abused their children.
Carrillo says the proof is in a document that appears to be from the school district and details a complaint about Pimentel made by parents in October of 2009.
“Parents stated that there is a male teacher named [Robert] Pimentel who has been known to touch female students inappropriately,” the document says. “The parents reported that he caresses the girls, gives them candy and photographs them without parent permission.”
The document also states that another parent accused Pimentel of misconduct but refused to push charges further because school Principal, Irene Hinojosa, was friends with Pimentel and the parent feared retaliation against the child.
Carrillo said that the school “never called the police in October 2009 and they didn’t file the suspected child abuse report. They did nothing and Pimentel continued his molestation.” Carrillo added that parents felt they had to bypass school officials and “went straight to the Los Angeles Police Department” to address the situation.
Carrillo also charged the school district with stonewalling requests for information and documents concerning past incidents of charges of misconduct waged against Pimentel.
Last year Principal Hinojosa was removed from her post due to the scandal, said L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy.
Four more district employees were placed on leave in connection with the case. Linda Del Cueto, senior instructional administrator in the San Fernando Valley; Mike Romero, head of the adult education division; David Kooper, principal at Gulf Elementary in Wilmington; and Valerie Moses, principal at Los Angeles Elementary in Harvard Heights were all put on leave pending investigation into what they knew of the allegations.
As to teacher Pimentel, he was charged with sexual misconduct of 12 children under the age of 14. He has been hit with fourteen felony counts spanning the time period of September 2011 and March of 2012.
More allegations and likely more charges are coming, however, as the investigation widens and more parents come forward with allegations, some of which go back to at least 2009.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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