Los Angeles, CA — An ex-priest who allegedly admitted a sexual relationship with a minor remained employed by the Los Angeles Unified School District for more than a decade despite several warning flags about his background, according to interviews and records.
Joseph Pina is also said in internal church documents to have admitted to repeated “boundary issues” with women throughout his career in the clergy. An internal 1993 psychological evaluation by the L.A. Archdiocese concluded that Pina “remains a serious risk for acting out.”
Nine years later, L.A. Unified hired him as a community outreach coordinator for its $19.5-billion school-construction effort. In that position, Pina came in frequent contact with families at community events but did not work directly with children in schools.
No allegations of impropriety have emerged during Pina’s employment with L.A. Unified. But L.A. schools chief John Deasy said the district has severed ties with Pina, adding that the district should have never hired him given his background.
A church spokesman said Monday that it did warn the school district in the form of a questionnaire that L.A. Unified sent to the archdiocese in August 2001.
“In response to the question: ‘Should the Los Angeles Unified School District consider anything else regarding this candidate’s employment suitability?’, the archdiocese checked the box ‘yes,’ adding that we would ‘not recommend him for a position in the schools,’ ” Tod Tamberg, director of media relations, said in a statement.
“In response to the next question on the form, ‘Would you hire this person again?’ the archdiocese checked the box ‘no,’ ” Tamberg said.
“There is no indication in our files of any follow-up from LAUSD once the form was returned to the LAUSD,” he said in the statement.
Deasy said the district was researching any past contact with the archdiocese as part of a larger investigation into how Pina was hired.
The district could find no record of the questionnaire, Deasy said. At that time, the facilities division handled its own hiring, to insulate the building program from potential political influence over billions of dollars in contracts.
The church waited years to report Pina’s alleged sexual misconduct to police. And Deasy questioned why the church wouldn’t do more to warn school officials about molestation allegations.
“Why wouldn’t someone pick up the phone and notify us if there was something as egregious as is now being alleged?” he said.
But there were other red flags that were not acted on.
The allegations against Pina were included in two front-page Times stories about the priest scandal in 2002 and 2006.
A district internal review has determined that a staffer noticed Pina’s name in published accounts, Deasy said. The employee passed the information to senior officials in the facilities division, Deasy said.
The employee recalled that officials decided to take no action because Pina had not been convicted of a crime, according to Deasy.
In 2002, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department investigated alleged abuse of a girl by Pina that occurred between 1977 and 1980, starting when she was 14. The case was eventually dropped because the crime predated the year established by law for pursuing older priest-abuse cases. The alleged victim “provides a detailed and graphic account of events,” Sgt. Dan Scott, of the special victims unit, said as he read through the file.
Pina refused to talk to investigators. Scott said the file does not note whether investigators contacted the school district about their findings.
Pina could not be reached for comment Monday by The Times.
Church records released last week recount how Pina was attracted to a victim, an eighth-grade girl, when he saw her in a Snow White costume.
©Los Angeles Times