Jury Can’t Agree on Educator Accused of Tardy Abuse Report

A mistrial was declared Wednesday after jurors said they were unable to reach a verdict in the case against Stuart N. Bernstein, a Los Angeles Unified School District administrator accused of failing to follow lawful procedures for reporting allegations that a teacher had molested students.

The panel deliberated only seven hours before telling Los Angeles Municipal Judge Patti Jo McKay that it was deadlocked, 10-2, in favor of conviction.

Bernstein, 48, is charged with five misdemeanor counts for allegedly violating a state law that requires school officials to notify city or county law-enforcement agencies within 36 hours if they “reasonably suspect” that a child has been abused.

The prosecution contended that Bernstein waited two weeks before reporting complaints about Terry E. Bartholome, a third-grade teacher at 68th Street Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles.

The prosecutor, Deputy City Atty. Mary E. House, expressed disappointment in the impasse but said she will retry Bernstein. A new trial was set for June 23. If convicted, Bernstein could be sentenced up to 2 1/2 years in County Jail and fined $5,000.

Two jurors who voted to convict Bernstein said outside court that they and others were heavily influenced by the defendant’s decision, when he finally took action Dec. 17, 1984, to alert school district police, instead of the Los Angeles Police Department.

It took nine more days for the LAPD’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit to begin its investigation, according to trial testimony.

Bartholome, 49, was arrested May 31, 1984, and is on trial in Los Angeles Superior Court on 45 rape, molestation and lewd conduct counts involving 17 children.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Bartholome testified earlier this week that he had masturbated in front of his students on two occasions and had twice drawn male genitals on the classroom chalkboard. But he denied molesting or raping any students.

Although there was trial testimony that Bernstein was informed about allegations against Bartholome as early as November, 1983, the charges focused on the two-week period in December, 1984, because the statute of limitations for misdemeanor cases is one year, House said.

The distinction drawn at the weeklong Bernstein trial between school district police and other police agencies played a “vital role” in the deliberations, said juror Richard Felty, 27, a shoe salesman.

Similarly, juror Lori Draut, 25, a secretary who lives in Studio City, said she would have been “much more easily swayed” toward acquittal had the law not required that city or county law-enforcement agencies be called.

Bernstein’s attorney, Harold Greenberg, said his client will make no comment on the mistrial.

Greenberg said he believed the judge erred in instructing jurors that school district police are not equivalent to other law enforcement officers. He said he will exercise his right to have a different judge preside over the retrial, in the hope of having the jury instructed differently.

‘We Had No Chance’

“Once I got that instruction against us, we had no chance,” he said. “As a matter of law, the jury had to find against us.”

House, however, cited a section of the California Education Code that states, in part, that a school district security department is “supplemental to city and county law enforcement agencies and shall under no circumstances be vested with general police powers.”

The prosecutor said the law required notification of city or county law-enforcement agencies because school security police are not specially trained in questioning victims of child abuse.

“Sexual abuse is a very difficult thing for children to talk about,” she said. “ . . . That’s why you bring in the experts.”

Felty said the two panelists who favored acquittal believed that Bernstein should not have been held accountable for the delay in reporting the charges against Bartholome.

“They felt he basically, overall, did what he was supposed to do,” the juror said.

Bernstein had testified that the information he initially received about Bartholome’s alleged behavior in the classroom was too sketchy to constitute “reasonable suspicion.” He said he asked Alice McDonald, the school’s principal at the time, to get the complaining students to write down their accusations against their teacher.

Felty said jurors tried not to be influenced by their knowledge that several other school district employees, including McDonald, had been granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for their testimony.

‘Was a Big “Why?”’

“We knew we couldn’t take that under consideration, that other people were under immunity,” he said, “ but it was a big ‘why?’ ”

“There were a half a dozen people who should have called and reported, and nobody did,” Draut said. “Bernstein’s going to be the one scapegoat in this and that’s too bad, but he should have been more informed of the law than anyone else.”

Two members of the Los Angeles Board of Education questioned why criminal charges had been brought against Bernstein in the first place.

“I don’t think, from what I can tell, that (Bernstein’s) behavior was criminal,” board member Jackie Goldberg said. “In my opinion, he called the police.”

“Any punishment that needed to take place has already taken place--by loss of reputation, loss of career advancement, not to mention public humiliation,” board member Roberta Weintraub said.