Ex-Counselor Sentenced for Spanking Students : Discipline: He gets 180 days in jail for battery after admitting that he took the action against four teen-age girls behind locked doors.

A former Oxnard guidance counselor was sentenced Wednesday to 180 days in jail and three years’ probation after admitting that he spanked four female high school students to discipline them.

Robert P. Bradley, 37, of Camarillo showed little reaction when Ventura County Municipal Judge Barry B. Klopfer sentenced him. Bradley’s ears reddened, but he said nothing.

Bradley pleaded guilty last month to four charges of battery after the girls complained that he had spanked them behind the locked doors of Santa Clara High School’s chemistry lab.

Bradley was released on his own recognizance Wednesday until July 5, when his sentence begins. He is eligible for the work furlough program in Camarillo, which could allow him to sleep in a minimum-security barracks while keeping his day job.

Bradley has quit the teaching profession and has been managing a Denny’s restaurant since school officials fired him in January, when two victims told of the spankings.

Klopfer ordered Bradley to pay any of the victims’ spanking-related psychiatric or medical bills during his probation and to pay $203 restitution to one victim, who sought a doctor’s treatment for pain caused by a spanking.

Klopfer ordered Bradley to get psychiatric counseling and stay away from anyone younger than 18, other than his own children, without an adult present.

Three of the victims told investigators that Bradley seemed sexually excited by the spankings and appeared sweaty and shaking as he hugged and kissed them afterward.

But Bradley’s attorney, Stephen L. Mitnick, argued Wednesday that there is no evidence that the girls were fondled or bruised. He quoted a psychiatrist’s report that found “no underlying sexual intent” in Bradley’s descriptions of the spankings.

Bradley spanked the girls “out of a conscientious, sincere interest in the welfare of the other person,” wrote the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Patterson. “He was acting out the role of being a surrogate father in the administration of discipline.”

Mitnick asked Klopfer to consider Bradley’s 16-year marriage, his children, 12 and 9, and his 10 years as a teacher, sports coach and counselor in the Oxnard school district.

Mitnick criticized a probation officer for recommending a one-year sentence because she had relied too heavily on a pre-sentence report by the district attorney’s office. That report contained other girls’ unproven allegations that Bradley had spanked, hugged and kissed them.

In the district attorney’s eyes, “A hug all of a sudden becomes a grope in these incidents and a kindly kiss on the forehead to a shaking girl becomes a wet mouth,” Mitnick said.

Klopfer had earlier sealed the district attorney’s report and scolded Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael K. Frawley for filing it in a misdemeanor case, which he said is against the law. Klopfer charged Frawley with contempt of court and scheduled a hearing on the charge for Friday.

Frawley then argued briefly for a harsh sentence for Bradley, calling the battery charges “not typical.”

“The court should recognize the humiliation that can be heaped upon teen-age girls after something like this,” Frawley said. “He does not even spank his own children, yet he would spank girls between the ages of 16 and 18.”