School teacher 'bound and gagged two dozen children, put roaches on their faces, fed them semen and took their photos'

Students exposed to semen advised to get STD tests

A Los Angeles elementary school teacher bound and gagged nearly two dozen children, put cockroaches on some of their faces and posed in photos with them the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said on Tuesday.

He also may have spoon-fed some of the children his semen.

The investigation began when a film processor gave authorities some 40 photographs depicting blindfolded children in a classroom with their mouths taped shut.

Mark Berndt, 61, who taught elementary school for 30 years, was charged with molestation after photos surfaced showing bound and gagged children, some with roaches, and some with what appears to be spoons of semen

A sheriff's department statement said Mark Berndt, 61, was arrested Monday at his Torrance home and remained jailed Tuesday on $2.3 million bail.

The district attorney's office said Berndt has been charged with committing lewd acts with 23 boys and girls ages 7 to 10 between 2008 and 2010.

Berndt worked for more than 30 years at Miramonte Elementary School in an unincorporated area of south Los Angeles before being fired last March. More than half of its approximately 1,400 students are still learning English, according to the school's website.



Some of the photos showed Berndt with his arm around the children or with his hand over their mouths.

Berndt lived in this apartment, top right, in Torrance, California. He was arrested at home

Other pictures depicted girls with what appears to be a spoon up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest a clear-white liquid.

A blue plastic spoon and container found in trash in Berndt's classroom tested positive for semen, the statement said.

The DNA matched Berndt's.

Sheriff's Lt. Carlos Marquez of the Special Victims Bureau said it was determined the children were given semen on a spoon or on a cookie.



None of the photos showed the students actually eating the semen, but Marquez said the children reported they didn't like the taste.

Authorities are recommending the children be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.



Berndt was fired from Miramonte Elementary School last March after teaching there for 30 years

Some of the children's mouths and faces had large, live Madagascar-type cockroaches on them..

Police were at the school Tuesday as the horrifying accusations were announced

'It makes you sick to your stomach,' Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy told KTTV Fox 11 News, which first reported the arrest.

The teacher was immediately removed when police informed the district and was fired, Deasy said.

No student ever came forward to report the abuse, he said.

More than 80 current and former students and school employees were interviewed for the investigation.

The sheriff's department said a search warrant served on Berndt's home led to the discovery of more than 100 similar photographs depicting children.

A DVD depicting adult sexual bondage activity 'which mirrored the bondage-type photos of the children' was also found during the search, the department said, noting that the adults in that video were not identified and those images are not a crime.