Teacher Gets 44 Years in Molestations

A former city school teacher convicted of lewd conduct and child molestation involving 13 girls he taught in elementary school was sentenced Thursday to 44 years in prison.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Fred Woods called Terry E. Bartholome, 49, of Newbury Park a “serious menace to society” and imposed the maximum sentence for the 19 felony and 11 misdemeanor counts.

Bartholome, who portrayed himself as a man besieged by sex-curious children, was found guilty on July 1 of the charges stemming from his job at the 68th Street School in South-Central Los Angeles.

During the sentencing hearing, the parents of four of the students told Woods that their daughters have suffered extreme emotional distress since the molestations and asked Woods to “throw away the key” and impose the maximum term.

Bartholome countered with a host of letters from his family and friends. His wife, Patricia, tearfully told Woods that her husband is “a good man in all respects.”

“He belongs, if anything, in a rehabilitation program,” she said. “I’m afraid he won’t live if he is put in a prison program.”

Bartholome, wearing the brushed denim jacket he has donned through most of his trial, told the judge he felt “great remorse for the students.”

“I’m very sorry for the lack of control and unprofessional behavior in this small period of my life,” said Bartholome, a teacher with the district for 16 years.

The molestations spanned a period from late 1983 through December, 1984, when a parent complained to Los Angeles Unified School District officials. The case achieved notoriety when authorities revealed that school officials had apparently received complaints against Bartholome as early as 1982 but had failed to call police as required by law.

Regional administrator Stuart Bernstein was sentenced earlier this week to two years of probation and 400 hours of community service for receiving a complaint in early December, 1984, and waiting more than two weeks to call police.

During the trial, Bartholome testified that his students had an unabashed curiosity about sex and that he would not have masturbated in front of third-graders on two occasions had the children not asked to see his genitals.

“Had they said, ‘Don’t expose yourself,’ I wouldn’t have done it,” Bartholome said.

He consistently denied during his four days of testimony that he molested any of the children, but he did admit drawing male sex organs on the blackboard, answering questions about human reproduction and allowing two girls to examine a condom he carried in his wallet.

“I was going through a despondency period of my life when I was not my normal self,” Bartholome said when asked to explain the incidents.

Bartholome disputed the testimony of children who said he fondled them or asked them to touch him.

The teacher speculated that pressure from police investigators may have caused them to fabricate such incidents, adding that he felt similar pressure when he signed a statement Jan. 4, 1985, saying, “At times, some of the girls grabbed my penis.”

Bartholome, who portrayed himself in testimony as the victim of sexually precocious youngsters, was convicted of child molestation and lewd and lascivious behavior with 13 students at the 68th Street Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles.

After his attorney, Shelden Edelberg, was unsuccessful in obtaining a new trial, Bartholome told Woods that he thought his attorney had provided “ineffective counsel” and he asked for a delay in sentencing while he hired a new lawyer.

Woods said the motion was “untimely” and denied the request.