Teacher Won’t Contest 2 Molestation Charges

A disabled Burbank high school science teacher pleaded no contest Monday to charges that he molested the 14-year-old daughter of a female friend who was a district employee.

Robert G. Goar, 54, chairman of the Burroughs High School science department since 1991, pleaded no contest to two felony molestation charges--penetration with a foreign object and a lewd act with a child under 16--in a surprise development in the opening day of his trial before Superior Court Judge Sandy R. Kriegler.

Goar, a 29-year employee of the Burbank Unified School District, was arrested by Los Angeles police on Feb. 21, 1996, after the girl told detectives that she had been molested both at her mother’s home and at Goar’s Toluca Lake condominium in 1994 and 1995. Authorities said the girl was not one of Goar’s students.

Shortly before the first prosecution witness was called on Monday, Kriegler invited Deputy Dist. Atty. Falomi Pierson and Goar’s defense attorney, Paul Takakjian, into his chambers and together reached a resolution whereby Goar pleaded no contest to two of the five counts filed against him.

“I’m very happy for the victim because she dearly was not eager to testify in this matter,” Pierson said. “We made the agreement because we felt it would be beneficial to the victim [and because] the perpetrator has no prior criminal record . . . and has some fairly serious physical disabilities [from polio].”

The divorced biology teacher, who had been free on $50,000 bail, will undergo a 90-day diagnostic evaluation and then reappear in court for sentencing in August. He faces a maximum prison sentence of two years.

Citing the police report, Pierson said Goar had been named in two previous complaints made to the school district about his behavior on campus. She said one involved a 16-year-old girl who alleged that he had lifted her skirt during class in 1990 and another involved a girl who claimed that she heard him making inappropriate comments about two other female students.

School Supt. Dave Aponik, citing confidentiality restrictions, said he could not comment on the complaints but added: “It’s fortunate that we have laws and a justice system to protect our youth and see that this gentleman never teaches again.”

Goar, he said, has been on an unpaid mandatory leave of absence since his arrest and now faces the loss of his teaching credentials and his job with the district.

He had been instrumental in helping his school acquire grants for science programs, among other accomplishments, Aponik said.

“All cases like this are kind of sad, because of the emotions involved,” defense attorney Takakjian said.