SAN JOSE — A disturbing case took an even darker turn Monday as authorities charged an employee of a popular science camp, already in custody on suspicion of child pornography distribution, with sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy.

Authorities are now investigating whether even more children were molested by the burly former night monitor at Walden West, Edgar Covarrubias-Padilla, 27. He was charged Monday in Santa Clara County Superior Court with four felonies, including possession and distribution of more than 600 child porn images and a lewd and lascivious act with a child under 14. The charges carry a maximum punishment of 10 years and four months in prison.

The allegations were a blow for families who have long trusted Walden West and the Santa Clara County Office of Education, which oversees the camp’s sites in Cupertino and Saratoga. A venerated institution in Santa Clara County, the camp has provided weeklong environmental science education to South Bay fifth- and sixth-graders for more than 60 years. About 165 school children take part in the Walden West Outdoor School every week.

The community’s faith in the program was further shaken by the Office of Education’s hasty assurances last week that the man known to children as “Papa Bear” had a job that did not require any contact with children. That information, and similar assurances by local school districts, proved false. The Office of Education, which fired Covarrubias-Padilla on Thursday, corrected the misinformation over the weekend.

“I am so livid,” said Amanda Barrett, of San Jose, about the difficulty in getting information about the safety breaches at the camp.

Barrett said her daughter’s school, Laurelwood, in the Evergreen School District, visited Walden West in January. At a pre-camp meeting, parents were told that if students got homesick or had a problem with their cabin leader, they could go talk to Papa Bear at night.

“He was your comfort, your safe place,” Barrett said.

Prosecutor David Shabaglian said outside court Monday that the allegations against Covarrubias-Padilla represent “a parent’s worst nightmare.”

Shabaglian asked anyone with more information about Covarrubias-Padilla to call investigators at 408-808-4300. The defendant was being held Monday in lieu of $125,000 bail, pending a May 20 bail hearing.

Covarrubias-Padilla initially came under investigation after he unwittingly emailed child pornography to a law enforcement official trolling the net for violators, the prosecutor said.

After Covarrubias-Padilla’s arrest, several school districts sent out prerecorded calls informing parents about the arrest and saying students had limited or no contact with the defendant.

But parents insisted the night monitor would often go into cabins to wake campers in the morning while playing music on his laptop. Then a parent who heard about the arrest asked her son if Covarrubias-Padilla had ever touched him. When the boy said he had, an investigator interviewed the child and the molestation charge was added to the criminal complaint.

Covarrubias-Padilla was night monitor at the Cupertino camp and lived at the Saratoga camp, where Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies arrested him and confiscated his laptop. Over the weekend, the Office of Education clarified that Covarrubias-Padilla had worked at both sites over the past two years in various capacities that involved contact with children. The office is conducting an internal investigation.

County Superintendent of Schools Jon Gundry said the initial, erroneous information came from Walden West Director Anita Parsons. Covarrubias-Padilla filled in as needed at the camp, including substituting for various people on both campuses and serving as night monitor on the Cupertino campus.

According to county Office of Education protocol, “students are not to be alone with an adult,” Chief Schools Officer Mary Ann Dewan said. But sometimes at night adult cabin leaders — who are county office employees or volunteers — would escort a sick child to the camp office, known as “the Hub.” There students would either be picked up by parents, or sometimes be escorted back to a cabin.

The county Office of Education is conducting its own investigation. “We want to get to the bottom of this,” Gundry said.

A sheriff’s spokesman last week said investigators are still reviewing photos they confiscated, and so far didn’t believe any of the images were of kids from the camp. But the investigation is ongoing.

Covarrubias-Padilla had undergone a standard background screening before he was hired in 2013 that included fingerprint clearance from the state Department of Justice, according to the county Office of Education.

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482. Follow her at Twitter.com @tkaplanreport. Contact Sharon Noguchi at snoguchi@mercurynews.com or 408-271-3775. Follow her at Twitter.com@noguchionk12.