Lupin Hill students charged in sex case
Two 8-year-old boys from Lupin Hill Elementary School in Calabasas are under investigation in the alleged sexual assault of an undisclosed number of students in the school’s restroom, according to a local attorney hired to represent one of the boys.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau was called to the school Oct. 30 to investigate allegations of children having been sodomized in the bathroom.
The boys were not identified because of their age. The father of one of the boys spoke on the condition that his name not be used.
He said he believes his son has been wrongly accused. He said one of the children under investigation had forced 10 or more students into the bathroom to sodomize them, but his own son was only involved in “looking and touching” other boys who were willing participants.
“There was no sodomy,” the father said. “Everybody there was consensual. I don’t approve, but no crime was committed.” He said his son told him he had gone into the school restroom with several boys to play with Pokemon cards, but eventually went into a bathroom stall to play “doctor.”
Both boys have been suspended from Lupin Hill and may be expelled from the Las Virgenes Unified School District, the child’s father said.
Attorney Adam Sachs, who represents the man’s son, said his client’s rights had been violated because the Special Victims detective allegedly interrogated the boy without his parents present.
“That’s illegal, not appropriate,” Sachs said. “They need to be read their rights and parents need to be there.”
But according to Sgt. Dan Scott of the Special Victims Bureau, detectives are allowed to speak with children during an investigation without their parents present. “We definitely can,” Scott said. “In a case like this we’re talking to children as victims,” he said. “The first thing (detectives must determine) is whether any of these children are victims of anything else.”
Scott said that when young children are accused of a serious offense they are not charged with a crime as an adult would be.
“We’re getting them the help that they need,” Scott said. “We want to make sure children are safe and get the necessary treatment.”
Treatment will be decided in court, Scott said. The boys were issued tickets for committing sodomy and must appear before a judge at Sylmar Juvenile Court. The district attorney will decide how to proceed in the case, he said.
“This is not a predator-type situation at all,” Scott said. “We treat (children) with kid gloves so we can point them in the right direction.”
Sachs believes the school district should be held responsible. “No one was watching,” he said. “I call that inadequate supervision.” Sachs also says the initial interrogation was flawed.
He suggested Special Victims Bureau Detective Tim Maclean asked leading questions similar to those in the 1980s’ Virginia McMartin Preschool case in which owners and teachers of the Manhattan Beach school were accused of criminal activity based on highly inflammatory allegations of young children enrolled there. A lengthy and costly trial concluded that investigators using suggestive questioning and props may have inadvertently led the youngsters to believe they had been victimized. Eventually all charges were dropped.
“Rather than stop and call the parents, he just kept feeding (my son) questions,” the father said. “It’s just like the McMartin case. ‘I’m going to get my case one way or the other,'” he said of the detective’s alleged intentions. “He figured (my son) was not just a victim but the one who was instigating it.”
Scott said detectives in the Special Victims Bureau receive ongoing specialized training in how to interview children who’ve been abused or are accused of abusing others.
“Our detectives do not ask leading questions,” Scott said. “They are very well-trained.”
“The kid I’m representing, he’s a little tiny kid,” Sachs said. “He’s incredibly small . . . not a big burly kid. It’s hard to believe he was running this ring and forcing other kids to do things. (I’m) suggesting he was experimenting . . . a very minor incident.”
Las Virgenes District Superintendent Donald Zimring said the sheriff’s department and California Department of Children’s Services are conducting the investigation.
“Our commitment is to make sure the campus is a safe place for all children,” Zimring said.
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