A confidential investigation into how a suspected child molester was assigned to a Los Angeles Unified School District middle school has concluded that no current employee was directly to blame, even though several made mistakes. The report itself has been criticized, as has the response of the district, which declined to disclose what, if any, disciplinary action resulted.
Steve Thomas Rooney became an assistant principal at Markham Middle School in Watts last year after police had warned the district that they suspected Rooney had had a sexual relationship with an underage former student.
Months later, police arrested Rooney on suspicion of molesting students at his new school. Rooney, 40, faces charges involving four students -- two from Markham and two from Foshay Learning Center in South Los Angeles, where he had previously worked. He has denied wrongdoing.
After Rooney was arrested in March, the district hired a law firm, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, to review his path to Markham. The Times obtained the report through a Public Records Act request.
Among its findings:
* Local District Supt. Carol Truscott, who made the decision to move Rooney to Markham, violated district policy by not first initiating an internal probe to see whether he posed any threat or should be disciplined. She responded that she didn't know that district policy mandated such an inquiry.
* Scott Braxton, who worked for Truscott overseeing schools, violated the same policy and offered the same reason.
* Dan Isaacs, the district's former chief operations officer, failed to share sufficient details regarding allegations against Rooney.
* The district's Employee Relations Department tracked only a gun allegation against Rooney, and the separate Staff Relations Department didn't advise Truscott to launch an internal review. Representatives of both departments claimed to be unaware of the sex allegations.
* The Los Angeles Police Department failed to keep reminding district employees about the sex allegations.
The $209,000 inquiry revisited district actions between February and September of 2007. At the start of that period, police detectives were investigating allegations that Rooney, on Jan. 1, 2007, threatened the stepfather of a former student with a gun.
Detectives quickly concluded that Rooney had a sexual relationship with the underage girl, whom he had taught at Foshay, according to police.
