Child Center Closes, Owner Loses License in Molestation

A day-care center in Santa Clarita where five children were sexually molested during a four-year period was permanently closed Tuesday and its owner prohibited from operating a day-care center, authorities said.

An agreement with the state Department of Social Services revokes the license of Mary Lee Koontz, owner of Koontz Day Care, but does not implicate her in the molestations that occurred in the center she operated at her home on Juneda Drive, said Mark Reese, a staff attorney with the department in Sacramento.

But the agreement states that Koontz failed to protect children under her care and should have known that the boy, who was not identified, had molested girls and boys on at least 18 occasions at the center between 1983 and 1987. The boy is now a teen-ager, but officials have declined to say how old the boy was when the children were molested.

The agreement, reached in December but effective Tuesday, revokes Koontz’s license but allows her to work for other licensed day-care facilities, Reese said. She obtained her license to operate a center Feb. 3, 1989, but had cared for children at her home since 1983.

William R. Lively, an attorney representing Koontz, said the boy was not an employee of the center but declined to identify him further. The agreement acknowledged that the molestations took place but did not explain how the boy had access to the children or his relationship to Koontz Day Care.

Koontz is the estranged wife of Santa Clarita City Councilman Dennis Koontz. He was not mentioned in the complaint.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received complaints about the center and notified the state of the incidents in March. The department decided not to prosecute the boy, Lively said.

The Department of Social Services closed Koontz Day Care temporarily May 19 as a step toward revoking Koontz’s license. The case was scheduled to go before an administrative law judge last month but the agreement precluded the need for a hearing.

Lively said Koontz spared the victims the ordeal of the administrative hearing by agreeing to settle the case. He called it a magnanimous gesture to protect the children.