Former Calabasas Teacher Arrested on Sex Charges

A former Calabasas High School teacher, wanted on 30 counts of having sex with a 17-year-old student, was arrested near Seattle on Tuesday when he applied for a Washington state teaching credential.

The California warrant for the arrest of Brian McNamara, 37, issued in March, was discovered in a routine fingerprint and background check, and he was taken into custody at his apartment in Issaquah, Wash., east of Seattle, said Deputy Dave Robinson of the King County Sheriff’s Department.

“We got a tip that he might be in the area,” Robinson said. “When he was fingerprinted and we ran his record, he was easy to find.”

A Calabasas woman, now 18, told police that in 1992 and 1993, during her junior and senior years at Calabasas High School, McNamara repeatedly had sex with her, according to the Los Angeles district attorney’s office.

McNamara refused to waive extradition to Los Angeles and extradition proceedings will begin soon, the district attorney’s office said.

McNamara, a member of the school’s science department since September, 1989, resigned Aug. 27 for undisclosed reasons, said Bob Fraisse of the Las Virgenes Unified School District.

He said the district is currently in litigation with McNamara but would not specify why. The district’s lawyer, Bruce Barsook, could not be reached for comment.

At the time of his arrest, McNamara told police he had been in the area for nine months and falsely claimed to be a teacher for the Bellevue School District.