2 More Youngsters Claim Molestation by Accused Teacher : Crime: Jeffrey Raker is charged with abusing four boys. The investigation has broadened to his church.

Two more boys have come forward with claims that they were molested by an elementary school teacher who has already been formally charged with abusing four pupils and is the target of an ongoing police investigation, Los Angeles police said Thursday.

The newest alleged victims, ages 12 and 14, both attended Hazeltine Avenue School, where accused molester Jeffrey Herbert Raker taught until he was placed on unpaid leave last week. So far, Raker has been charged with six counts of sexually assaulting four of the seven boys whom police have identified as victims.

Raker, who pleaded not guilty to the charges this week, is accused of molesting the students on campus, at his Studio City home and during weekend trips. The sexual assaults began a few months after he started working at Hazeltine in February, 1992, police said, and the alleged victims have all either been students in Raker’s classes or were members of sports teams he coached after school.

Police said they plan to interview youths who may have had contact with Raker at the church he attended, St. David Episcopal Church in North Hollywood.

“We will continue to seek out additional victims until we’re satisfied we’ve located them all,” LAPD Officer Rosibel Ferrufino said. “We’re talking to everyone Raker has come in contact with from 1992 on. . . . Now we have to start looking at the church.”

The Rev. Jose Poch, pastor at St. David, could not be reached for comment Thursday, but he has said previously that Raker was not involved in any youth-group activities since he began attending services there a couple of years ago.

Police began investigating Raker, 47, last week after a student told a playground supervisor that Raker had molested him. Prior to starting work at Hazeltine, Raker spent roughly 15 years living in Guatemala, where he worked as a teacher and founded an orphanage, according to authorities.

It was during that time that Raker reportedly spent more than a year in a Guatemalan jail on allegations of child abuse and was released through the intervention of friends from the United States, said James Solheim, public affairs director of the New York-based Episcopal Church.

Raker ran a small orphanage in the house where he lived in a village north of Guatemala City, according to Solheim, who was able to glean a few details about Raker’s stint there Thursday by speaking with Guatemalan Bishop Armando Guerra.

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Guerra, who has headed the Episcopal Diocese of Guatemala since 1982, was in Chicago for a church meeting. “The bishop said no more than eight or nine children were at the orphanage at any one time,” Solheim said.

He added that the bishop does not remember reading or hearing about whether Raker had been brought to trial on the child-abuse allegations--only that the American had been released from jail and was out of the country.

Episcopal Church officials have emphasized that Raker was neither a missionary for the American church nor an employee of the local diocese when he worked in Guatemala. But Guatemalan church officials said they nonetheless knew of Raker’s being jailed there.

According to a 1989 issue of the Episcopal News, the diocesan newspaper in Los Angeles, the Guatemala City diocese eventually took over operation of Raker’s orphanage.

Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, school district officials said Thursday that Raker’s employment application offered no hint of trouble.

In his Los Angeles Unified School District application, completed in 1992, Raker said he had never been convicted of a misdemeanor or a felony, school officials said.

All teaching candidates must check a box on the application that asks if the applicant has ever been convicted or pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor or a felony. Raker checked “no,” officials said. The application also asks about pending criminal cases, and Raker indicated he had none.

District spokesman Bill Rivera said a review of Raker’s application showed that the school system received three letters of recommendation for Raker from schools in Guatemala. The letters, all written in Spanish, cover the period from 1978 to 1989, Rivera said.

“There was no reference or correspondence that would trace whatever might have happened while he was there,” Rivera said.

Raker also said on his application that between 1989 and 1991, he ran a boys’ home, the translated name of which is the Home for the Children of Jesus, Rivera said.

“Because he listed himself as the founder, there was no way we could confirm that,” Rivera said.

Rivera also said the district received a very positive letter of recommendation from the Peace Corps, in which Raker served, also in Guatemala, from 1972 to 1976.

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Before he was hired, Raker took the school district’s bilingual exam to determine his level of fluency in Spanish and was given the highest rating, school officials said. He was allowed to teach a bilingual class--and receive a $5,000 pay differential--because of his score, the officials said.

News of Raker’s arrest continued to rock Hazeltine Avenue School on Thursday, as many students and faculty members remained in a state of disbelief that the immensely popular teacher had been arrested.

“The children are still upset and they’re still quite on edge,” said Hazeltine Principal Pat Abney. “They’re still asking the question, ‘When is Mr. Raker coming back?’

“They just don’t get it,” Abney said.

Some of the children who have made the allegations against Raker are experiencing guilt and have been singled out by some students who believe they are responsible for getting Raker in trouble. “It’s not vicious at this point,” Abney said.

Parents have also called the school offering to act as character references on Raker’s behalf.

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Two district psychologists conducted counseling sessions Thursday with several students and about a dozen teachers. School officials also circulated a memo among the faculty, informing teachers that they could be relieved from their classes to attend counseling sessions.

A charismatic man who was known among his colleagues for his inspirational poems and other writings, Raker had made friends with many teachers at Hazeltine. Some ate lunch with him daily and others helped him with the after-school teams he voluntarily coached.

“There’s a fear that it could happen to them,” Abney said. “It just hits too close too home.”

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.