Court Forbids Teacher Contact With Inmates

A Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered former Ventura School teacher Bradley Gardner to have no further contact with two female inmates with whom he is accused of having had sex while he was their instructor.

Judge Edward Brodie did not say why he gave the order, but Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Lela Henke-Dobroth said prosecutors want to keep Gardner from accepting calls from one of the inmates at the juvenile prison.

“One of the victims has been in communication with Mr. Gardner and we wanted to stop that communication between the two of them,” she said.

Gardner, 42, said in an interview later that he did not initiate the contact. He said one of the women has called him collect several times to offer support since he resigned under fire last May.

The most recent call came after Gardner was arrested Jan. 27 and charged with five felony sex counts involving two then-17-year-old inmates at the coed California Youth Authority prison near Camarillo.

“One of the girls has been calling me,” Gardner said. “It began several months ago after I resigned. I didn’t make attempts to contact her. She contacted me. I didn’t discourage it. But I didn’t initiate it either.”

Gardner said the woman--now about 20 years old--is a convicted murderer from Humboldt County. He is charged with having had oral sex with her while she was his student in 1996 and 1997.

“I haven’t tried to influence her in any way to get her to do or say anything,” he said. “I haven’t tried to coerce her.”

He would not comment on their relationship except to say it is friendly and that she has called to be supportive. The topics of their conversations are personal, he said.

Gardner, a Camarillo resident, has been charged with four counts of oral copulation and one count of penetration with a foreign object with the students between 1996 and 1998. A vocational education teacher at the youth prison since 1991, he is free on $20,000 bail.

His arraignment--already delayed once--was reset again on Thursday for April 1, after defense lawyer Jorge Alvarado asked for more time to get documents and records from prosecutors.

Those documents include a newly released 103-page inspector general’s report on mismanagement and sexual misconduct at the prison’s Ventura School.

“We want the inspector general’s report and a whole bunch of audiotapes,” Gardner said.

Gardner also commented briefly on recent developments at the scandal-plagued school--declaring Wednesday’s removal of CYA director Francisco Alarcon by Gov. Gray Davis an interesting development.

He said he supported efforts by state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) to force reform at the school. “I think she’s doing a good job,” he said.

The school’s top three administrators were suspended last week after the inspector general found a 20-year pattern of mismanagement and sexual misconduct at the prison.

The report found “a systemic problem” of lax management that allowed sexual misconduct by employees and inmates to continue, and resulted in unfair treatment and sexual harassment of women employees.

Robert Presley, the state’s top prison official, is expected to make a decision within a few days on the futures of suspended school Supt. Mary Herrera, Assistant Supt. Chuck Kubasek and security chief James J. McDuffy. They remain on paid administrative leave.

The Ventura School has been at the center of controversy since 1997, when Wright and other state lawmakers accused the Youth Authority of covering up rapes of inmates by guards. Three officers were later fired or forced out.

The current turmoil has prompted two parallel investigations, the inspector general’s probe and a separate internal investigation into possible criminal sexual misconduct by employees.

In addition to the Gardner case, Youth Authority investigators say that criminal cases against seven other past and present employees have been sent to local prosecutors.

Nine school employees have been fired or forced out since last April, authorities said.

The Ventura School is the only coed facility among 15 run by the state Youth Authority. It houses 415 male wards and 317 female wards between the ages of 13 and 25. Most were imprisoned for violent crimes.

Times staff writer Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.