Attorneys representing two victims of a former Miramonte Elementary School teacher convicted of sexually abusing children announced Tuesday that a collective $3.55 million settlement of both cases has been reached with the Los Angeles Unified School District.
Plaintiff Jane RE Doe settled for $1.85 million and John AE Doe for $1.7 million, the lawyers said. In their separate L.A. Superior Court lawsuits, the plaintiffs alleged that former Miramonte teacher Mark Berndt sexually harassed, abused, and molested the victims on multiple occasions ranging from in or around 2004 through 2008.
KNX News’ Emily Valdez spoke to attorney Morgan Stewart, who represented the two former students, about the case.
“Unfortunately, these were lower-income households, significant Spanish-speaking households that simply did not know what he was doing, and he made it a game,” he said.
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Berndt pleaded no contest in 2013 to 23 charges of lewd conduct upon a child and was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was accused in that case of feeding cookies laced with bodily fluids to children and of taking pictures of them, sometimes with tape over their eyes and mouths. Berndt taught at the school from 1979 until 2011.
LAUSD has paid out more than $170 million to about 150 former students at Miramonte. There is at least one more lawsuit pending against the district concerning this abuse.
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