An 18-year-old former student at Foshay Learning Center testified Thursday that she told a school administrator that she had had a sexual relationship with an assistant principal and that the administrator had advised her to recant statements she had made to police after she expressed concern that the man could go to jail.
The statement, at a court hearing for the former assistant principal, Steve Thomas Rooney, is the most direct evidence to become public that a Los Angeles school official had direct knowledge of Rooney's alleged sexual relationship with a student before he was transferred to another school, where he allegedly molested two other students.
Rooney was ordered Thursday to stand trial on charges of having illegal sexual contact with each of the three students.
A spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District said the administrator who allegedly was informed of Rooney's alleged actions had been placed in a "non-school assignment" while police detectives examined his role in the case. His name has not been made public.
The testimony from the former Foshay student was unclear on certain key details about her conversation with the administrator, including what exactly she said that prompted him to advise her to recant.
Under cross-examination by Rooney's lawyer, Dmitry Gorin, the young woman testified that she had a fake driver's license that stated she was two years older and that she had committed identity theft. She also acknowledged lying under oath last year during an emancipation hearing, where she had denied having a sexual relationship with Rooney.
The former Foshay student, who testified that her relationship with Rooney led to a pregnancy when she was 16, testified along with the other two alleged victims at Rooney's preliminary hearing.
Rooney was arrested March 4 on suspicion of forceable lewd acts with a 13-year-old girl from Markham Middle School in Watts, where he began working last year. A subsequent investigation led to molestation charges involving another Markham student and unlawful sex with the Foshay girl.
The school district has come under intense criticism for Rooney's transfer, which came after the Los Angeles Police Department began investigating whether the educator had had sex with the Foshay student.
She testified Thursday that she essentially lived at Rooney's downtown Los Angeles loft for portions of 2005 through 2007 and that he took her to public events, including a military ball, and on trips to San Diego and the New York home of his parents, where he had sex with her.
