LOS ANGELES (Map, News) - The Los Angeles school district has removed two senior administrators from their jobs as part of its investigation into how an employee was transferred to a middle school despite facing sexual misconduct allegations.

The man, Stephen Rooney, allegedly molested two students at his new school, Markham Middle. He was ordered last week to stand trial on charges of having illegal sexual contact with three teenage girls.

Local district Supt. Carol Truscott and Scott Braxton, who worked for her, have been assigned to the central office pending completion of the district's internal investigation, Senior Deputy Supt. Ramon Cortines said Tuesday.

Seventy-five current district employees have been placed in "non-school" positions until the matter is wrapped up, Cortines said.

Truscott was among district officials who received a memo in February 2007 that said Rooney had just been arrested on a gun charge and also was being investigated by police for allegedly having sex with a minor, Cortines said.

When police decided not to file charges, Truscott and Braxton assigned Rooney to be assistant principal at Markham.

Cortines said Truscott was directly responsible for ensuring that an internal investigation of Rooney took place and that Truscott and Braxton were responsible for ensuring that Rooney had been cleared of any suspicion.

"They will tell you they felt the direction from downtown (headquarters) was unclear," Cortines said.

In fact, Cortines said, no internal investigation took place until a law firm was contracted to do so this year.

Truscott said Monday that Supt. David Brewer told her not to comment on the issue until the district's investigation on the handling of Rooney matter is completed.

An 18-year-old girl testified at Rooney's pretrial hearing Thursday that she had a sexual relationship with him while she was a student at James A. Foshay Learning Center and became pregnant when she was 16. She said she later suffered a miscarriage.

Police began investigating the 39-year-old Rooney after he was arrested for investigation of pointing a gun at the girl's stepfather. She testified that she acknowledged the relationship to police, but later became worried that Rooney would go to jail.

She later denied to a prosecutor that she and Rooney had had sex. No charges were filed, and Rooney was transferred to Markham.

Rooney, who remains jailed on $1 million bail, claims some of the sexual encounters were consensual and others were made up by the accusers.

Comments from Examiner Readers

12:15 AM MST on Sat., Mar. 8, 2008 re: "LA assistant principal charged with lewd acts with student"

Examiner Reader said:
hard to believe, he was my ninth grade teacher and he never did anything of this sort.

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11:14 PM MST on Thu., Mar. 6, 2008 re: "LA assistant principal charged with lewd acts with student"

Examiner Reader said:
what happens to child molesters in prison?

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