Spring Valley Drug Raids Net Teacher, 22 Students

A mathematics teacher and 22 students were among the 32 people arrested Tuesday as the result of a five-month undercover drug investigation at Mount Miguel High School, a San Diego County Sheriff’s Department spokesman said.

Ten other suspects were being sought, the spokesman said.

The only adults arrested in the case were Larry Wilson, 34, a Mount Miguel mathematics teacher from Chula Vista, and Hewitt Phillips, 18, of La Mesa, and Bradley Smith, 18, of Spring Valley, both seniors at the school.

Wilson, who has taught mathematics in the Grossmont Union High School District for nine years, was arrested on a charge of furnishing marijuana and released on his own recognizance. He is scheduled to appear in San Diego Municipal Court on April 1, according to Deputy Dave Stafford.

Phillips was being held at the County Jail in downtown San Diego on $6,000 bail on two counts of selling or furnishing marijuana. Smith was being held in lieu of $3,000 bail on one count of selling or furnishing marijuana.

A Grossmont school district official said Wilson was suspended with pay.

All but two of the juveniles arrested were taken to the Lemon Grove sheriff’s station and later released to their parents. Those two were on probation and were taken to Juvenile Hall.

The undercover investigation began in September after the Sheriff’s Department received complaints from school officials, parents and neighborhood merchants about suspected drug activity in the school area.

Mount Miguel Principal Tom Flood said a complaint by a student about Wilson helped spark the investigation.

A woman deputy was enrolled as a student at the school as part of the investigation.

During the five months of the operation, she recorded 68 alleged offenses involving the sale or supplying of marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamines (also called speed), Stafford said. About 75% of the alleged offenses occurred on school grounds, he added.

Wilson was accused of giving the undercover deputy some marijuana cigarettes, Stafford said.

Michael Eddy, director of student services for the school district, which includes Mount Miguel, said that Wilson was “shocked about what happened. He was concerned about the embarrassment this might cause him.”

Attempts to reach Wilson for comment were unsuccessful.

Flood said that the reactions of the parents were mixed, “ranging from shock to disbelief.”

The undercover drug operation was the first staged by the sheriff at a school and the county’s first outside the San Diego Unified School District. San Diego police have conducted several undercover operations in that district.