High School Coach Arrested on Suspicion of Molestation

In the second report of child molestation by a Los Angeles Unified School District employee in recent weeks, a dean’s assistant and coach at San Fernando High School was arrested on suspicion of committing lewd acts with three students, police said Wednesday.

Abel Ramirez, 34, was taken into custody at the high school at 4 p.m. Tuesday on suspicion of molesting three male students, ages 15 and 16, over a two-year period, according to Lt. Rick Papke of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Foothill Division.

Ramirez, who has worked at the school since 1986 and coached two of the boys on the junior varsity baseball team, had sexual contact with the students at off-campus locations or on city streets inside his Ford Explorer, Papke said.

“We are looking at multiple incidents,” said LAPD Det. Corinne Malinka. “We also believe that there are additional victims out there, and we are asking them or any witnesses to contact us.”

The students told detectives that their relationship with Ramirez was consensual until recently, when he began to threaten them, prompting them to report him to authorities, Papke said.

“The information we are getting from [the boys] is that the suspect was getting more and more demanding and more and more violent,” Papke said. “There were threats, but we can’t go into that.”

Ramirez, who is scheduled to be arraigned today in San Fernando Municipal Court on several felony counts of child molestation, is being held at the Foothill station jail in lieu of $340,000 bail.

Officials from the Los Angeles school district on Wednesday declined to comment on the allegations because of personnel and privacy issues, but noted that employees who are arrested usually go on unpaid leave.

San Fernando High Principal Philip Saldivar said that he knew little about the allegations Ramirez faces, including the identities of the alleged victims, but that the school is cooperating with police.

“I was shocked and surprised,” said Saldivar, who first heard of the allegations Tuesday when police came onto the 4,470-student campus and took Ramirez into custody. Most students had gone home by that time and did not witness the arrest, he said.

On Wednesday, teachers and students walked past TV cameras, uninterested. Reporters who stopped students and asked questions often got blank looks, shrugs and responses of “I don’t know.”

Most faculty and staff at the year-round school learned of the allegations against Ramirez on Wednesday afternoon when Saldivar sent out a written announcement. Saldivar said he was careful to be brief and simple, since he did not know all the facts.

“[The allegations] trouble me,” Saldivar said. “These are strong allegations; a person’s character could be ruined.”

Saldivar said he expects students to learn about the allegations by today after media attention, and that the school is prepared to offer any counseling needed.

Ramirez, a San Fernando resident and 1982 alumnus of the school, began working as a clerk in the dean’s office in 1986 and has since been an assistant coach in baseball and softball off and on. He is currently an assistant coach of girls’ junior varsity softball.

In his six years as principal of San Fernando High, Saldivar said, the school has never had any serious complaints about Ramirez.

Saldivar described him as “a very jovial, gregarious individual, a hard worker, punctual, supportive of the school staff and motivating as a coach.”

Former San Fernando High School baseball Coach Steve Marden said Ramirez had been one of his assistants and described him as “a fine young guy.”

Danny Vega, a 1998 San Fernando High graduate and former baseball player, echoed Marden’s sentiments and added that Ramirez “would always be there when someone got into trouble. I can’t believe what he’s being charged with. I don’t think he’s like that.”

But police told a different story, saying that Ramirez used his coaching position to gain the trust of the boys and then take advantage of them.

Ramirez befriended the boys in 1997 and began having sexual contact with them over time in separate incidents, detectives said. On Monday, detectives said they learned of the crimes after one of his victims reported the sexual contact to a pastor, who informed the boy’s parents and then police.

Ramirez’s arrest comes on the heels of molestation charges against a special-education teacher last month.

In that case, Florine Strimel, a 35-year-old instructor at Granada Hills High School, pleaded not guilty in Glendale Municipal Court to seven felony charges that she had sex with one of her 17-year-old students.

LAUSD officials acknowledged that police had investigated Strimel on similar allegations when she was a substitute teacher in 1996 and 1997. The allegations were not substantiated and no action was taken, district officials said.

Police would not disclose whether Ramirez had a criminal record but said he is not a registered sex offender.

Times staff writer Eric Sondheimer contributed to this story.