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ambitious_wench5 allege sexual abuse at coastside school
SUITS NAME 2 TEACHERS AT PRIVATE CAMPUS IN '80S
By David L. Beck
Mercury News
Five former students at Monterey Bay Academy, a private high school near Watsonville run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, say they were sexually abused by two teachers at the boarding school during the 1980s.
In recent lawsuits filed in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz superior courts, the male students, all now in their 30s, say they were given alcohol and drugs, groped, sodomized and raped. The sex acts allegedly happened in their dorm rooms, in teachers' offices, on one teacher's sun deck and in another teacher's bedroom, in cars and in hotel rooms.
School officials, the lawsuits allege, had to be aware of the ``open and notorious'' conduct of the two teachers, which the lawsuits say went on for years before and after the five went to the coeducational school.
Principal William Keresoma said it would be ``inappropriate'' to answer questions and referred inquiries to the school's attorney, Philip Hiroshima of Sacramento. Hiroshima did not return phone calls from the Mercury News.
Attorneys for the two teachers declined to comment.
Four of the former students were asked to leave the school before they graduated. Their lawyer said those dismissals were orchestrated by the two teachers when the students began to complain. One student ``was informed that he obviously did not fit in at MBA,'' according to court papers.
``I wanted out of that hell,'' said plaintiff John Juarez in a telephone interview this week from Oklahoma, where he is on active duty with the Navy. ``I'd been molested by two different men. I went to a faculty member to tell him and nothing was done. I was basically checking out alive -- know what I mean?''
In the interview and in his lawsuit, Juarez said he was raised in a strict Adventist home. The four other plaintiffs tell much the same story in their lawsuits, which describe the teachings of the church -- including chastity, ``a disapproval of homosexuality as sinful'' and the prohibition of alcohol and stimulants.
The accused are Lowell E. Nelson, a retired biology teacher whom plaintiffs' attorney Joseph P. Scully calls a charismatic campus leader; and Ronald E. Wittlake, a music teacher.
``This didn't start out as a vindictive thing against the church,'' said Scully, a Los Angeles attorney who filed the five cases and who is an Adventist. ``It was my goal to resolve it.''
In the first and most detailed of the lawsuits, the plaintiff is identified only as Michael W., the son of an Adventist pastor to whose Glendale church Scully also belongs.
Michael W. ``experienced daily reminders that he must be obedient at all times to the will of God which, as a practical matter, meant being obedient to the Seventh-day Adventist church and its adult representatives,'' according to the lawsuit.
That upbringing left him, and others like him, vulnerable to the alleged predations of two teachers who formed what Michael W.'s lawsuit calls a ``club'' to provide themselves ``with a steady supply of young boys.''
Built on a 379-acre former Army base, the Coastside school opened in 1948. Registration this fall was about 240 students in grades 10 through 12. In addition to a small airport left by the Army, the campus includes a dairy farm, strawberry fields and a shop that makes surfboard fins for a local manufacturer.
It's a closed campus, though students may leave in the company of teachers, and a quiet one.
``I've always thought of them as just very nice neighbors down the road,'' said Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ellen Pirie, whose district includes the school. ``I've never heard anything negative either about the students or about the faculty.''
All five former students were shattered by their experiences, according to the lawsuits, so much so that four of them repressed their memories of abuse until last year. Michael W.'s awakening took place, ironically, at an Adventist seminar on child sexual abuse. Three of the others said they were shocked into awareness when confronted by an investigator working for Scully.
The fifth, Lassen County court worker and former sheriff's deputy Reinhold Tilstra, never lost his memories of what happened at the school, Scully said.
Nelson, 70, taught at Monterey Bay Academy for nearly 30 years, retiring in 1998; he now lives in El Dorado County. Reached at their home, his wife, Arladell Nelson, said she had been told to refer inquiries to their lawyer.
Wittlake, 49, taught at the school from 1981 to 1989 and lives and teaches in Los Angeles County. Calls to his home were not answered.
All five lawsuits were filed against the Central California Conference of the Adventist Church, which operates Monterey Bay Academy. Four of the suits include the two teachers as defendants. One also accuses the teachers' wives of conspiring with their husbands in the abusive acts. A Los Angeles judge is expected to rule Feb. 9 on the wives' request to be dismissed as defendants.
The lawsuits, one filed as recently as Dec. 31, were brought under a one-year extension of the statute of limitations designed to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse access to the courts as
SUITS NAME 2 TEACHERS AT PRIVATE CAMPUS IN '80S
By David L. Beck
Mercury News
Five former students at Monterey Bay Academy, a private high school near Watsonville run by the Seventh-day Adventist Church, say they were sexually abused by two teachers at the boarding school during the 1980s.
In recent lawsuits filed in Los Angeles and Santa Cruz superior courts, the male students, all now in their 30s, say they were given alcohol and drugs, groped, sodomized and raped. The sex acts allegedly happened in their dorm rooms, in teachers' offices, on one teacher's sun deck and in another teacher's bedroom, in cars and in hotel rooms.
School officials, the lawsuits allege, had to be aware of the ``open and notorious'' conduct of the two teachers, which the lawsuits say went on for years before and after the five went to the coeducational school.
Principal William Keresoma said it would be ``inappropriate'' to answer questions and referred inquiries to the school's attorney, Philip Hiroshima of Sacramento. Hiroshima did not return phone calls from the Mercury News.
Attorneys for the two teachers declined to comment.
Four of the former students were asked to leave the school before they graduated. Their lawyer said those dismissals were orchestrated by the two teachers when the students began to complain. One student ``was informed that he obviously did not fit in at MBA,'' according to court papers.
``I wanted out of that hell,'' said plaintiff John Juarez in a telephone interview this week from Oklahoma, where he is on active duty with the Navy. ``I'd been molested by two different men. I went to a faculty member to tell him and nothing was done. I was basically checking out alive -- know what I mean?''
In the interview and in his lawsuit, Juarez said he was raised in a strict Adventist home. The four other plaintiffs tell much the same story in their lawsuits, which describe the teachings of the church -- including chastity, ``a disapproval of homosexuality as sinful'' and the prohibition of alcohol and stimulants.
The accused are Lowell E. Nelson, a retired biology teacher whom plaintiffs' attorney Joseph P. Scully calls a charismatic campus leader; and Ronald E. Wittlake, a music teacher.
``This didn't start out as a vindictive thing against the church,'' said Scully, a Los Angeles attorney who filed the five cases and who is an Adventist. ``It was my goal to resolve it.''
In the first and most detailed of the lawsuits, the plaintiff is identified only as Michael W., the son of an Adventist pastor to whose Glendale church Scully also belongs.
Michael W. ``experienced daily reminders that he must be obedient at all times to the will of God which, as a practical matter, meant being obedient to the Seventh-day Adventist church and its adult representatives,'' according to the lawsuit.
That upbringing left him, and others like him, vulnerable to the alleged predations of two teachers who formed what Michael W.'s lawsuit calls a ``club'' to provide themselves ``with a steady supply of young boys.''
Built on a 379-acre former Army base, the Coastside school opened in 1948. Registration this fall was about 240 students in grades 10 through 12. In addition to a small airport left by the Army, the campus includes a dairy farm, strawberry fields and a shop that makes surfboard fins for a local manufacturer.
It's a closed campus, though students may leave in the company of teachers, and a quiet one.
``I've always thought of them as just very nice neighbors down the road,'' said Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ellen Pirie, whose district includes the school. ``I've never heard anything negative either about the students or about the faculty.''
All five former students were shattered by their experiences, according to the lawsuits, so much so that four of them repressed their memories of abuse until last year. Michael W.'s awakening took place, ironically, at an Adventist seminar on child sexual abuse. Three of the others said they were shocked into awareness when confronted by an investigator working for Scully.
The fifth, Lassen County court worker and former sheriff's deputy Reinhold Tilstra, never lost his memories of what happened at the school, Scully said.
Nelson, 70, taught at Monterey Bay Academy for nearly 30 years, retiring in 1998; he now lives in El Dorado County. Reached at their home, his wife, Arladell Nelson, said she had been told to refer inquiries to their lawyer.
Wittlake, 49, taught at the school from 1981 to 1989 and lives and teaches in Los Angeles County. Calls to his home were not answered.
All five lawsuits were filed against the Central California Conference of the Adventist Church, which operates Monterey Bay Academy. Four of the suits include the two teachers as defendants. One also accuses the teachers' wives of conspiring with their husbands in the abusive acts. A Los Angeles judge is expected to rule Feb. 9 on the wives' request to be dismissed as defendants.
The lawsuits, one filed as recently as Dec. 31, were brought under a one-year extension of the statute of limitations designed to allow victims of childhood sexual abuse access to the courts as
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lawsuit
Date: 2004-07-21 08:26 pm (UTC)wondering...
wray
Re: lawsuit
Date: 2004-07-21 08:53 pm (UTC)my friend, another classmate, alerted me to this case (with Nelson) not long ago. I asked him if he'd been victimised, and he said no, but Nelson had a reputation at that time of talking smut with the boys all the time.
So I think it was more widespread but held under wraps. I remember Mr. Nelson as a funny guy, but he was rather snubbing of me on several occasions.
Re: lawsuit
Date: 2004-07-21 09:04 pm (UTC)