A former Los Angeles Unified School District grade school teacher who retired to Newport Beach–only to be hauled back to LA County to face charges of sexually abusing three students and a female relative–pleaded no contest to multiple counts Thursday.
Robert Pimentel, 58, faces 12 years in state prison and a lifetime of having to register as a sex offender at his June 19 sentencing in Long Beach. His no contest plea was to three felony counts of committing a lewd act on a child and one count of continuous sexual abuse involving a female relative.
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Robert Pimentel, Retired Teacher Living in Newport Beach, Accused of Abusing 20 Kids
At the time of his arrest in January 2013, Pimentel was accused by LAPD cops of having abused at least 20 kids and one adult. Indeed, multiple counts involving other former students were dismissed with the ex-teacher's plea, according to prosecutors.
The lewd acts counts involved students in the 2011-12 school year, while the continuous sexual abuse charge was for the treatment of a female relative between 2002-04.
The probe of Pimentel began in 2012, when girls attending George De La Torre Jr. Elementary School in Wilmington told their parents about the abuse. Before the LAUSD could fire Pimentel, the fourth-grade teacher retired. The district had informed police as required by law, however.
Yes, fears are true: Retiring before Pimentel's arrest preserved his pension and benefits. Our tax dollars at work!
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.