Teacher Served Time for Child Abuse, Church Says : Crime: Jeffrey Raker, accused of molesting four boys in Van Nuys, was jailed in Guatemala, Episcopal officials say.

An elementary school teacher charged this week with molesting four male students previously was jailed in Guatemala on child abuse charges before returning to California to work for the Los Angeles Unified School District, officials of the Episcopal Church said Wednesday.

The teacher, Jeffrey Herbert Raker, who taught at Hazeltine Avenue School until last week, had operated an orphanage in Guatemala for several years before it was taken over by the Episcopal Church, church officials said.

Raker, 47, spent more than a year in a Guatemalan jail in the 1980s and was released through the intervention of friends in the United States, said James Solheim, public affairs director of the New York-based Episcopal Church.

Los Angeles police arrested Raker on Friday after a Hazeltine student told a playground supervisor about being molested, triggering an investigation that so far has turned up five alleged victims, authorities said. Altogether, more than 20 boys have been interviewed by police.

Raker pleaded not guilty at his arraignment Tuesday in Van Nuys Municipal Court to charges that he molested four students, ages 8 through 11, all of whom he had taught at Hazeltine or coached after school.

“We do expect to get additional filings and we do expect to find additional victims,” LAPD Officer Rosibel Ferrufino said. Police allege Raker molested the students on campus, at his Studio City home and on camping trips.

Raker faces more than 50 years in prison if convicted on the current charges.

District officials Wednesday sent five counselors to Hazeltine to conduct emergency counseling sessions for students and teachers.

“His class is a basket case,” said Pat Abney, the principal at Hazeltine. “There has been a lot of crying, and we’ve been passing out Kleenex all morning long.”

Distraught fifth- and sixth-graders had hoped to telephone Raker at jail, but settled instead on writing him letters of support, Abney said. Students were also preoccupied with figuring out who told on Raker, school officials said.

“They want to know who said something bad about their teacher,” Abney said. “They don’t believe it.”

Bill Rivera, an LAUSD spokesman, said his district runs fingerprint checks on all job applicants--including Raker--to ensure that they have never been convicted of a felony crime in the United States. But the district has no way of checking whether applicants have been convicted of a felony crime in another country, he said.

Raker had listed references from two elementary schools and a high school in Guatemala when he applied for a job with the school district, receiving “very positive” recommendations from each of the schools, Rivera said. Raker also received a glowing review from the Peace Corps, which he served from 1972 to 1976 in Guatemala.

Board of Education President Mark Slavkin said he believes the district should develop a more effective way of checking the backgrounds of teacher applicants--even those who have lived for lengthy periods of time outside the United States.

“I think the system at all levels needs to assure parents that every effort . . . was taken to screen every teacher candidate before they’re assigned to a classroom,” Slavkin said. “We need to be able to weed out the few--and I emphasize few--applicants who might have something to hide.

Before beginning work for the Los Angeles school district, Raker had spent roughly 15 years in Guatemala, authorities said.

He was neither a missionary for the American church or for the Diocese of Guatemala, Episcopal Church officials said Wednesday.

“Raker worked with an Episcopal priest who worked independently of the diocese in Guatemala. The priest had his own school there,” Solheim said. “An American woman working there reported this guy to the Guatemalan authorities.”

The Los Angeles diocesan newspaper reported in May, 1989, that Raker had “left this ministry.”

Raker had also worked as a youth director at St. David Episcopal Church in North Hollywood while he was in high school and college.

John Farnsworth, a former pastor at St. David, said Raker was a youth group leader in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Farnsworth said many members of the youth group later followed Raker to First Presbyterian Church of North Hollywood.

“At the time, he was a very energetic and ambitious kid, and he seemed very bright,” Farnsworth said.

The Rev. Jose Poch, the current pastor at St. David, where Raker has attended for the past two years, said Wednesday that he tried unsuccessfully to visit Raker in jail.

“I just want to be a pastor for him in his time of need,” Poch said. “I’m just very sorry at what has happened to him, and if it’s true, what has happened to the victims.”

Sally Way of North Hollywood, who has known Raker and his family for 30 years, said she broke the news of his arrest to his sister, who lives in Northern California.

“She’s just appalled, she doesn’t know what to do, and she doesn’t think it’s possible,” Way said of Raker’s sister. “We kind of cried together.”

Way said she dines monthly with Raker, and although she had heard that he had some problems while working at the orphanage in Guatemala, she does not believe he molested his Van Nuys students.

Way said she became friends with the Raker family in 1965, meeting them at St. David church after they moved to Los Angeles from Tampa, Fla. She said about five years ago Raker had adopted a son in Guatemala who last year graduated from North Hollywood High School and is currently in the U. S. Navy.

Raker moved from a North Hollywood apartment to his family’s home in Studio City after his mother died last year, Way said.

“He was so polite and courteous,” Way said. “He is what you’d want your son to be.”

Authorities allege that Raker began molesting students after he started teaching classes at Hazeltine in February, 1992.

Parents at the school Wednesday were issued flyers saying a “serious allegation” was being made against a teacher who has been removed from the campus.

Several parents who received the flyers said they were shocked by Raker’s arrest. “It’s bad enough that you can’t send your kids out to play on the street, but now at school?” said the mother of a first-grade boy.

Other parents who know Raker say he was an energetic teacher who always had time for his students. “I don’t think it’s real,” said Ernestina Guevara, whose daughter was in Raker’s class. “My daughter would tell me every day how good he was. I’m confused.”

Guevara said her daughter, Estrella, had trouble sleeping Tuesday night and appeared nervous about the news. Said Estrella, 12: “He’s the best teacher at the school. Do you think he’ll come back?”

Students, particularly those in Raker’s class and the boys he coached in baseball and softball, said they are upset and don’t believe the charges. “We want Mr. Raker out of jail,” some students shouted at a television crew waiting outside the school gates.

Several students said Raker gave them uniforms and took them on field trips. They said he always made time for them--both in the classroom and on the playground, where he volunteered to coach softball, baseball and volleyball teams after school.

“He was a good friend to me,” said Billy Caban. “He didn’t do this. No way.”