City Workers Accused in Molestation of Children

Two city Recreation and Parks Department employees--one of whom had a previous sex crime arrest--have been arrested for allegedly molesting boys and girls at a city-operated day-care center in Echo Park, city officials said Tuesday.

The arrests prompted officials to order a review of the personnel records of all 2,000 part-time employees in the department to determine whether any have criminal records that would disqualify them from working with children.

The City Council, on a motion by Councilwoman Gloria Molina, also ordered officials to ensure that all child-care center employees are fingerprinted, as required by state law.

Fingerprinting--a requirement for all state-licensed child-care centers--was not performed on the two suspects before they were hired, city officials acknowledged.

Such a precaution presumably would have turned up the previous arrest of Charles Chavez, a suspect in the case and driver of a van used to take children to and from the Echo Park Recreation Center’s day-care center, Molina said.

“I’m very angry about this,” Molina said in a telephone interview. “The law says they have to fingerprint people at the time they are hired.”

Chavez has a previous arrest for lewd conduct with a prostitute, said Molina and Police Lt. Marlin Warkentin. The disposition and other details of the case were not immediately available.

A teary-eyed Susana Santellanes, 33, who had a 5-year-old daughter at the center, said: “It’s horrible. My daughter was one of the ones he (Chavez) touched. She didn’t want to tell me because she thought I would be upset.”

Chavez, 33, of Los Angeles, who was arrested at the center in October, has been charged with four felony counts of performing lewd acts with children under 14 in connection with allegations that he fondled two girls, ages 5 and 10, over the past year, said Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office. Chavez was being held at Los Angeles County Jail on $20,000 bail.

The second suspect, Simon Bermudez, 37, of Los Angeles, was arrested at his home late last month on suspicion of fondling the genitals of one boy, and urinating in front of two other boys in the center’s restroom, an offense known as child annoyance, authorities said. Bermudez has been released on $5,000 bail, police said.

The city attorney’s office on Tuesday was reviewing Bermudez’s case to decide whether to pursue misdemeanor or felony charges against him.

Chavez declined to be interviewed at the jail, and Bermudez could not be reached for comment.

Jim Hadaway, general manager of the Recreation and Parks Department, acknowledged that his supervisors should have fingerprinted the suspects, who worked at the school for 25 children, most of them 6 to 11 years old.

“It was discovered the two employees had not been fingerprinted at the time they were hired,” Hadaway said in an interview. “We admit the error. . . . The director of the facility should have had them fingerprinted and the supervisors should have seen that it was done.”

Molina said her frustration in getting satisfactory explanations prompted the unusual step of calling both Hadaway and John Driscoll, general manager of the Personnel Department, before the City Council on Tuesday.

In his presentation before the council, Hadaway said, “The question is, do we fingerprint every single part-time worker who works in a recreation center? That would mean fingerprinting an additional 2,000 employees. I think we have decided that’s probably what we ought to do.”

During the meeting, Molina revealed that she had recently asked Driscoll’s office to check records on 109 employees in the city’s child care centers. So far, Driscoll testified, that random audit had covered 20 employees. Of those 20, he said, there were no fingerprint records of nine employees.

“And they’re working with children today,” Molina added pointedly.

At a boisterous meeting Tuesday night, about 40 angry parents confronted Recreation and Parks officials with questions about why Chavez and Bermudez had been allowed to work with their children.

“This person had a prior criminal record. He was not fingerprinted. . . . How could the directors let this happen?” asked Patricia Mendoza, 26, whose 4-year-old daughter attends the school. “We need more security, we need more teachers.”

Some parents, however, said they feared the child-abuse charges would lead to the closing of the center, which they said is one of the few subsidized child-care centers available in the neighborhood.

“We can’t afford private child care,” said Gilda Motta, 27, whose two daughters are enrolled in the center. “This school has been very good.”

Debby Rolland, a district supervisor for the department, said at the meeting that Chavez had been hired by the department as a recreation assistant at the center in 1985, two years before the child-care program was established. Chavez’s original position did not require him to be fingerprinted, she said.

Chavez was transferred to the child-care program sometime after it was begun in 1987, but was not fingerprinted.

Molina also accused recreation and parks officials of failing to report the alleged incidents of child molestation to the state Department of Social Services within 24 hours, as required by law.

However, Department of Social Services spokeswoman Kathleen Norris said the department has known about the situation for a month.

“There has been an investigation by our department and it was expedited because of the seriousness of the charges,” Norris said. “It is in our legal department at this point and we do not know what action will be taken.”

Norris, who could not say exactly when the incident was reported to the state, said that “it is possible certainly” that the center could lose its license.

Authorities were alerted to the alleged molestations when a woman brought her 10-year-old daughter into the Ramparts Division police station and had the girl recounted the allegations to investigators, said Warkentin.

The child accused Chavez of fondling her chest and “touching her vaginal area over her clothes” on several occasions in the previous few months, Warkentin said.

“We began an investigation immediately and a 5-year-old child told us the same story of molestation over her clothes,” Warkentin said. “We took Chavez into custody.”

In the meantime, investigators began contacting parents of every child who attended the center “because we were concerned the number of (allegations of molestation) could grow much larger,” he said.

So far, about 25 sets of parents have been contacted, Warkentin said. Another three families have yet to be contacted.

The Chavez investigation was in full swing, said Warkentin, when investigators learned of an alleged incident in which Bermudez urinated in a bathroom at the center as two boys, 3 and 4 years old, watched. Warkentin said a preliminary investigation suggests that the two men were not working in concert.

Rene Feliciano, a former volunteer at the Echo Park child care center who said he has known Chavez all his life, contended that his friend, who he calls Chuck, “never hurt nobody.”

“He’s a good person. I’ve seen him with the children,” said Feliciano of Chavez. “You could see little kids hugging Chuck. They always asked for him.”

Times staff writers Hector Tobar, Jane Fritsch, Michele Fuetsch, Daniel Weinstaub and Scott Harris contributed to this story.