A jury has granted $ 48 million to six alumni of a South Elder El Monte who was sexual for a life of a lifetime.
The students, who were between 8 and 10 years old at the time of abuse, reported that their teacher, Joseph Baldebro, touched, assaulted or harassed in an inappropriate way while attending Miramonte primary school. Abuse occurred between the early 2000s and 2017.
Monday’s verdict took place after a month trial in which the students of the students presented evidence that the Mountain View School District had warnings of inappropriate behavior by Baldebro dating from the 1990s, but there was no action.
Baldenebro, 62, was sentenced in 2018, whether lascivious or lascivious acts with children and sentenced to 8 years in prison. There was a second set of criminal positions related to child sexual abuse against him in 2022 and resulted in a non -confusion supplication in the summer of 2024 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. It is eligible for probation in 2031, according to the state records of the prison.
“This school district knew about this type, I knew about this pedophile, for 20 years,” said Nick Rowley, one of the lawyers who represented the former students in their demand against the school district. “There were so many red flags: warning after warning after warning the directors who simply ignored him, who did nothing and really covered him.”
The lawyers of the Mountain View school district did not respond to a request on Tuesday. In a statement, the school district said that “unequivocally condemns the abuse of any kind and remains deeply sad for the damage that fell to our students and community.”
The school district had negligently recognized Baldebro, who taught in the district for more than two decades, but said it was Baldenebro who gave the damage to the students, not to the district.
The oldest of the former students had said that he was in the Baldbro class from 2002 to 2004, during the third and fourth degree, and that he was 9 years old at the time of abuse, according to judicial documents.
She said growing with Baldenebro, and said she had suggested that she could become her “godfather”, according to a modified demand filed in the case.
The student said she was aware that Baldenebro was the “godfather” for others, and judicial documents describe the benefit that Baldebro gave to his alleged Godchilden: trips to amusement parks, lunches, clothes, CD and parties after school.
Rowley, the lawyer, said Tuesday that Baldebro described himself as a godfather of 24 students around a period of years.
In the judicial documents, the student said that after she entered the fourth grade, Baldebro after school summoned her to sit in her lap, where she touched her and kiss her. “He would tell her that he loved her and that he would hit her hard on him,” the student’s lawyers wrote in a trial letter in 2021.
In 2004, the student told the then director about his awkward experiences with Baldenebro. Around that time, the student, his parents and Baldenebro with the director. Baldenebro “accused or exaggerated her, and that he was only doing that as an act of love and care,” according to judicial documents.
The director “convinced his parents that this Baldenebro behavior was normal because he was his godfather,” according to the prestial letter.
The jury gave the student $ 9 million of the verdict of $ 48 million, the second largest amount.
Other former students reported that they submitted to hugs, kisses and unwanted empathals in their rear, according to a prestial letter presented by their lawyers. A student said he stroked her genitals and then raped her in her classroom; The student, whose name is not revealing, received $ 16.5 million.
Of the total verdict, the jurors held the Mountain View school district for a little more than $ 36 million; Baldenebro is responsible for the rest, although it is unlikely to pay.
A district spokeswoman, Jocelyn Ríos, said she could not reveal whether all or part of the verdict would be covered by the school members of the school district or if other funds in the district would be used to pay it.
In a statement, the district said that it instituted “significant steps … with the objective of prevention of future incidents of not being detected or not informed.”
Among the steps are an annual effort to be seen: being heard “, described as” a program of sexual aggression and abuse of aggression and abuse of the entire district.
Before the trial, the district lawyers had sacrificed an agreement or around $ 100,000 per student, Rowley said.
“Since the beginning of this case, the school district and its lawyers devalued what the thesis victims passed and minimized what happened to them,” said Michael Carrillo, the main lawyer of the case that represents the former students. “The jury saw all that.”
