LOS ANGELES (AFP) - A former teacher has been arrested for allegedly taking photos of blindfolded and gagged students with roaches on their faces and spoons of semen to their mouths, US police said on Tuesday.
Mark Berndt, 61, who taught for more than 30 years at an elementary school in east Los Angeles, faces multiple charges of committing lewd acts on nearly two dozen children, prosecutors said.
'I am sickened and horrified by the behavior of Mark Berndt,' said LA Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy after 23 criminal counts were filed involving 7 to 10 year-old children allegedly abused between 2008 and 2010.
'This individual and his conduct do not reflect on the quality of the teachers who work so hard on behalf of the students in the Los Angeles Unified School District,' he said.
Berndt was removed from teaching duty as soon as the allegations surfaced in January 2011, after more than 40 photos of children in a classroom, with blindfolds and tape covering their mouths, were reported by a film processor.
Berndt had his arm around the children or a hand over their mouths, said a LA Sheriff's Department statement.
Some of the photos 'depicted girls with what appeared to be a blue plastic spoon, filled with an unknown clear/white liquid substance, up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest the substance,' it said.
DNA tests concluded the substance was Berndt's semen. 'There are also photos of children with large live Madagascar-type cockroaches on their faces and mouths,' said the statement.
More than 100 similar photos were found at his home, while police also 'recovered was a DVD of film depicting adult sexual bondage activity which mirrored the bondage-type photos of the children.' Berndt is due to be arraigned in court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
Source: ST Online
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