D.A. Won’t File Charge Against Teacher Accused of Taping Girl

The Orange County district attorney’s office said Thursday it will not file criminal charges against a substitute teacher who allegedly taped a Tustin first-grader’s mouth shut with a strip of masking tape and threatened to tie her up for being disruptive in class.

The incident at Lambert Elementary School allegedly occurred just before school let out March 16. Police were notified after the girl’s mother, Theresa Rodriguez, reported it to Principal Karla Wells.

Tustin Police Lt. Brent Zizarelli, who headed the investigation, said the decision not to prosecute resulted from conflicting accounts of what happened. He said the teacher, whose name has not been released publicly, denied taping the girl’s mouth and told police he had merely held up the tape as a warning.

Zizarelli said that after reviewing a report of the Police Department’s investigation, the district attorney’s office concluded that the teacher’s behavior had been inappropriate but did not reach the level of criminal conduct that would result in charges. The child did not suffer any injuries, he said.

After Rodriguez reported the alleged incident, Tustin Unified School District officials banned the substitute teacher from working in the district. District spokesman Mark Eliot said that decision stands.

The district also forwarded the teacher’s name to the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which will conduct an investigation to determine whether to revoke or suspend the teacher’s credential or take other action.

Barbara Moore, staff counsel for the commission, said she could neither confirm nor deny whether the commission received a complaint about the teacher.

But she said that when the commission receives a report from a school district about such an incident, “we’d have jurisdiction to investigate and an investigation would be conducted.”