Trial Opens for School Administrator in Molestation Case

Senior Los Angeles school administrator Stuart Bernstein failed to notify police for two weeks after learning of allegations that a third-grade teacher was suspected of molesting girls in his class, a prosecutor charged in her opening statement at Bernstein’s trial Thursday.

Instead, Deputy City Atty. Mary House said, Bernstein ordered 68th Street School Principal Alice McDonald to gather more information on the allegations against teacher Terry Bartholome, 48, by interviewing several students and their parents.

Bernstein, 48, then a Los Angeles Unified School District regional administrator in South-Central Los Angeles, is charged with five misdemeanor counts of failing to promptly notify police about child molestation allegations. If convicted under the 1981 law that requires school officials to report such incidents within 36 hours, Bernstein could face a maximum 2 1/2 years in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Bartholome, meanwhile, is on trial on charges of 32 felonies and 13 misdemeanors involving the alleged molestation of 17 students.

House said that four other school officials, including McDonald--who has been granted immunity by the prosecution to testify--will take the witness stand during Bernstein’s Municipal Court trial. Bernstein will testify in his own defense, according to defense counsel Harold Greenberg.

Greenberg, who did not make an opening statement, said outside the courtroom that he will demonstrate that his client has been “singled out unfairly” as a scapegoat.

Bernstein is the only administrator that reported the allegations against Bartholome, Greenberg said. He added that Bernstein told McDonald to gather the additional evidence because he wanted to make sure the case against Bartholome was ironclad.

House said McDonald was warned by district officials “to keep an eye” on Bartholome because of previous unsubstantiated sex molestation allegations made against him when he taught at the 107th Street School. McDonald, she said, will testify that she “immediately reported to Dr. Bernstein that there was a problem,” when she received a complaint about Bartholome from a student’s mother on Dec. 3, 1984.