D.A. Inquiry Targets Former L.A. Unified Principal

A Los Angeles Unified principal, who was demoted last month, is under criminal investigation for hiring her now-husband and another relative at her Hollywood middle school, records and interviews show.

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s special investigations division is looking into financial transactions involving Gloria E. Mercado, former principal at Le Conte Middle School, and her husband, business consultant Bruce D. Fortine, the district attorney’s office confirmed Thursday.

“We have it under review, but we’re not going to discuss the details at this time,” said spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. “We do anticipate an announcement soon.”

Meanwhile, the district has removed Mercado from daily operations at Nimitz Middle School in Huntington Park, where she had become principal. She was demoted July 1 to the status of secondary school teacher, although she is currently working at a desk job in a downtown office. The demotion cut her pay more than 40%, to $57,956.

Mercado, 46, and Fortine, 61, are a prominent couple in Santa Clarita. She sits on the William S. Hart Union High School District board, and he is a trustee for the Santa Clarita Community College District.

Both deny any wrongdoing and say the allegations have been part of a teachers union campaign to wreck Mercado’s 23-year career. Mercado said Thursday that she was unaware of any criminal probe.

“I have no idea about any investigation,” she said. “I have not been contacted” by the district attorney’s office. Mercado and her husband say they are fighting the district over her demotion and will have an arbitration hearing on the subject in January.

L.A. Unified spokesman Erik Nasarenko confirmed Thursday that the district attorney is investigating Mercado but declined to say if the allegations prompted her demotion.

“The school district will fully cooperate with the district attorney’s office and provide any assistance it will require,” he said.

Mercado served as Le Conte’s principal from Aug. 16, 1993, through June 30, 1998. During that time, records show, her sister was hired as a clerk in the front office, and more than $17,000 was paid to the sister’s husband and Fortine for work as part-time aides.

In all, Fortine received $10,600 for being an “integration helper” and later a “school supervision aide,” district records show.

Among the payments: a $1,100 check Fortine received for helping with overflow parking at Le Conte created by a series of entertainer Ru Paul’s shows at nearby KTLA Studios. Records show that Mercado signed the check, which was drawn on student body funds and dated May 27, 1998--days before Fortine resigned from the district and the couple married.

The investigation began after some Le Conte teachers and employees came forward with accusations that Fortine and Mercado’s brother-in-law, Richard Garcia, rarely worked as supervision aides during school hours. The employees also raised questions about thousands of dollars in computer equipment Mercado bought through Garcia’s company, Genos Computers.

“Different people at our school began to see pieces of what she was doing,” said Charles Toots, Le Conte’s math department chairman and United Teachers-Los Angeles representative on campus.

“For instance, the school financial officer saw the computer transactions, and for some reason that triggered a red flag to him. The office manager was aware of the time-reporting anomalies, so she provided that piece,” he said Thursday. “It was very clear that something was going on.”

Toots said he reported the suspicions to district officials in late June 1998, triggering an internal investigation. Records show that on July 1, 1998, the district made Mercado principal at Nimitz, a promotion that paid her $103,635 a year.

When the internal probe appeared to stall earlier this year, union attorney Jesus Quinonez said, he met with the district attorney’s staff. Mercado was transferred from Nimitz on Feb. 19 to a desk job at the instructional technology division.

In a previous interview with The Times, Mercado and Fortine characterized the allegations as baseless and as part of a union campaign to retaliate against Mercado for helping prosecute a former union representative at Le Conte for child molestation. The person pleaded guilty to four counts of molestation in 1997 and was sentenced to prison.

“The situation with the child molester was big news. The union was very unhappy . . . because one of their players got nailed. And nailed big,” Fortine said.

Mercado also said district policy at the time discouraged but didn’t bar administrators from hiring relatives. Furthermore, she said, hiring talented relatives has been a common practice at the district.

She said Fortine, in particular, was instrumental in setting up a computer lab, forging partnerships with KTLA and Paramount Studios, managing various cleanup projects, building a school Web site and helping arrange for a show to celebrate Le Conte’s 75th anniversary.

The $8 an hour that Fortine and Garcia, who also worked on computers, received was far less than they were worth, she added. “These people were making peanuts,” she said. “They were doing me a favor.”

A source familiar with the district attorney’s inquiry said the office is not probing the purchase of the computers from Garcia’s firm.

Garcia said Thursday that he has shut down the firm and now works full time for an insurance company. He confirmed that he worked at Le Conte part time but said he was unaware that the district classified him as a supervision aide.

“My intention was to provide repair work on the computers, setup, software installation, and to work on their tech lab that was being built at the time,” he said. He put in the hours he was paid for, he said, and “the work I did was well worth the $8 an hour.”

As for the $1,100 check, Mercado said she had no discretion in the matter because the money was donated specifically by KTLA’s corporate owner for the parking services, which were provided in part after school hours.

“They gave that check to the student body [fund],” she said. “They said, ‘This is how much we’re giving in donations for your use, and then this is how much for the person doing supervising for the parking.’ ”