LOS ANGELES -- A former Los Angeles-area elementary school teacher has been charged with lewd acts on children, including putting cockroaches on students' faces, blindfolding them and taping their mouths shut, authorities said on Tuesday.
Mark Berndt, 61, was arrested at his home in the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance on Monday, accused of abusing nearly two dozen boys and girls, ages six to 10, between 2008 and 2011, officials with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said.
He is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office said in a statement. An attorney for Berndt could not be reached for comment.
Authorities began investigating Berndt over a year ago, after more than 40 photos depicting children in classrooms with their eyes blindfolded and mouths covered with tape were turned over to police, Sheriff's Department officials said.
"The details on this particular case are disturbing. There's no such thing as normal and this is way beyond normal," said Sheriff's Lieutenant Carlos Marquez, who supervised the case.
In some photos, Berndt was seen with his arm around children or his hand over their mouths, Scott said. In others, children were seen with "large, live Madagascar-type cockroaches on their faces and mouths," the Sheriff's Department said.
Other photographs showed girls being offered a blue plastic spoon that contained a clear or white substance, which authorities now believe may have been semen.
Early in the investigation, detectives recovered a similar blue spoon from the trash in the teacher's classroom that tested positive for semen, said Sheriff's Sergeant Dan Scott.
Berndt's DNA was found to match that of the DNA profile found on the spoon, he added.
For over 30 years, Berndt taught at Miramonte Elementary School in the Florence area of Los Angeles County, Scott said. Berndt was fired by the Los Angeles Unified School District in March 2011, shortly after the investigation began, Scott said.
Investigators have discovered 390 photos in the case, and about 10 of the children in them have not been identified, the Sheriff's Department said.
Berndt was charged with 23 counts of lewd acts upon on child, court records show, and was being held in jail in lieu of $2.3 million bail. He could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted on all counts.
source: interaksyon.com
