Teacher Gets Jail Term for Abusing Boys at School

A Catholic school math teacher was sentenced to a year in county jail Monday for sexually abusing children.

Armando Garcia, 42, pleaded guilty late last month to inappropriately touching six boys and engaging in oral copulation with a seventh.

The incidents occurred at St. Lawrence Brindisi School in Los Angeles from 1997 through 2000, Deputy Dist. Atty. Steve Katz said. The victims were 12- and 14-year-old students.

The school is run by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Education and Welfare Corp., which is accused in a separate lawsuit of not acting quickly enough to stop Garcia, according to court papers.

Tod Tamberg, a spokesman for the archdiocese, expressed sympathy for the victims.

“It is a terrible, terrible breach of trust,” he said. “The vast majority of our teachers are very good people who hold the trust that the parents place in them as sacred.”

In addition to imposing the jail sentence on Garcia, Judge David M. Horwitz put him on probation for five years, and ordered him to register as a sex offender and to get psychological counseling. Garcia will begin serving his jail sentence in two weeks.

Katz said Garcia was arrested after one student reported him to a school administrator, who in turn reported the teacher to police.

He said Garcia could have received up to life in prison if he had been convicted in trial on all counts because multiple victims were involved. A trial would have been risky, he said, because many of the victims “were extremely uncomfortable” about going to trial, and some were uncooperative.

“I don’t know what would have happened ... if we had pursued the case to trial,” Katz said. “Certainly, evidentiary concerns weighed heavily in the decision.”

A relative of one victim, who asked not to be identified by name, said she understood the prosecution’s decision to accept a one-year sentence. Other families didn’t want to get involved, she said.

But she said Garcia deserved more time.

“He abused them physically and psychologically,” she said in court. “He’s a threat to society.”

Standing in the courtroom with his lawyer, Garcia did not respond.

A 15-year-old youth filed the civil complaint on May 10 alleging Garcia molested him during the 1999-2000 year in and outside of school when he was 14 and in the seventh grade.

The lawsuit alleges that the student, identified as John Doe, suffered emotional distress, including nightmares, depression and embarrassment. The distress could last into adulthood and “adversely affect his relationships and self-concept,” according to the suit.

The suit accuses the Archdiocese of Los Angeles Education and Welfare Corp. of negligently hiring and supervising Garcia and alleges it should have known he could not be trusted around children.

The archdiocese received complaints about inappropriate behavior with students and had reason to be suspicious of him, according to the lawsuit. It says Garcia almost always selected boys for his special math competition group.

The lawsuit alleges that Garcia put children on his lap during class, and posted a picture on the wall showing him and a boy “in an inappropriate embrace.”