Miramonte
Sex Abuse Civil Cases Settled for Record Amount: Nearly $140 Million
by Melissa
Pamer and Chris Wolfe
November
21, 2014
A settlement worth nearly $140 million was
announced Friday between LAUSD and the families of 82 victims of former longtime
The settlement of the victims’ lawsuit
against the
Though there was some dispute about the exact
figure, attorneys for both sides said they believed the amount was the
largest-ever settlement involving a school district.
“It’s not a happy day. It’s gratifying, but we’re here because over 100
children were subjected to horrific abuse,” said plaintiffs
attorney John Manly outside the Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown
Manly called the crimes at Miramonte
Elementary “nothing less than emotional mass murder,” and said the settlement
indicated that the school district acknowledged that.
Berndt, 63, worked at Miramonte Elementary in
the
Berndt’s conduct was revealed by authorities
in January 2012 after his photos showing blindfolded children were discovered
by a photo technician, prompting a yearlong Los Angeles County Sheriff’s
Department investigation. He was accused of serving spoonfuls of semen and
semen-laced cookies to his students, sometimes blindfolding them as part of a
“tasting game.” He also took photos of them with giant cockroaches on their
faces.
There were “two perpetrators,” Manly said:
Berndt and administrators who ignored or concealed his behavior for decades,
resulting in harm to “multiple generations” of students.
“I cannot imagine what it would be like for
a parent to try to explain their little girl or their little boy that
they ate their teacher’s semen,” Manly continued. “I can’t explain
it. I was going to have a difficult time explaining it to a jury. How does a
parent explain that?”
The case prompted outrage and created a
massive scandal for the school district, which has since implemented
changes to how it handles employee misconduct allegations and how those
cases are reviewed and reported to the state.
No school district representatives spoke on
camera about the settlement Friday, but LAUSD Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines
said in a statement that the settlement deal “struck a balance” between two
objectives.
“Our goal from the outset of these appalling
revelations has been to spare the Miramonte community the anguish of a
protracted trial, while at the same time being mindful of the financial
consequences stemming from settlements,” Cortines said in the written
statement.
“Throughout this case, we have shared in the
pain felt by these children, their families and the community. Each day, we are
responsible for the safety of more than 600,000 students. There is a sacred
trust put in us to protect the children we serve. While we know Mr. Berndt went
to extreme lengths to hide his conduct, we know that our job protecting
students is never done,” Cortines continued.
The deal comes as jury selection was underway
in one of several Miramonte-related civil lawsuits against LAUSD, which is the
nation’s second-largest school district.
Recently revealed court documents showed the district knew about
allegations against Berndt beginning in 1983, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Shortly after plaintiffs attorneys announced
the deal Friday morning, LAUSD issued a statement saying it had “resolved the
remaining Miramonte litigation at issue for a total of $139,250,000.”
The reason for the $500,000 discrepancy
between the attorneys’ and the district’s figures was not immediately clear,
but a spokesman for the school district said court documents show the lower
figure.
An independent process has been established
that will allow the judge to review each individual claim and assign the
appropriate settlement amount to each plaintiff, the district said.
Some parents of students at Miramonte had
accepted a separate $30 million settlement for 65 cases last year and
earlier this year, but many families chose to proceed with their civil cases.
The funds for the settlement will come out of
the district’s general fund, but LAUSD will seek reimbursement from its
insurers, according to district General Counsel David Holmquist.
“We’ve been using taxpayer money to pay
premiums on these various policies covering a number of school issues,”
Holmquist said. “We believe this case is an appropriate claim and we expect
these insurance companies to step up and reimburse us to some degree.”
***********************
Ex-teacher
who force fed students his own semen gets 25 years in jail
Mark Berndt, 62, a former teacher with the
CNN reported that Berndt was “immediately
sentenced to 25 years in prison.”
Berndt, who had taught at the elementary
school for 30 years, was jailed in Feb. 2012 after being accused of
spoon-feeding his own semen to his students. During his initial hearing, it was
revealed that he also bound and blindfolded dozens of students while
photographing them for his sexual pleasure.
Capt. Mike Parker of the Los Angeles County
Sheriff's Department said that Berndt originally told his students they were
playing a "tasting game."
Some photos show children with a giant live
cockroach crawling on their faces; others show a blue plastic spoon allegedly
filled with Berndt's semen held up to their mouths, authorities said.
The sick stunts behind Berndt's 23 counts of
lewd acts against children took place between 2005 and 2010, authorities said.
The victims of Berndt’s sexual molestation
included 22 girls and one boy between the ages of 7 and 10.
The Los Angeles Unifed School District
(LAUSD) paid out almost $27.3 million to settle 58 of 191 students' lawsuits
brought against the district by Berndt’s victims.
The ex-teacher reportedly fed his students
cookies covered with his own semen, but told the students the white substance
was sugar. Parents of the kids are saying now that their children will never be
able to eat cookies again.
"He deserves to be punished," one
mother said in her statement to the court. "Back in the day, you burned
them in wood."
For
more on Mark Berndt's no contest plea, see the video accompanying this article.