LOS ANGELES – A U.S. school teacher bound and gagged nearly two dozen children, put cockroaches on some of their faces and posed in photos with them, possibly inside a classroom, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said Tuesday.
A department statement said 61-year-old Mark Berndt was arrested Monday and remained jailed Tuesday on $2.3 million bail. The district attorney's office said Berndt has been charged with committing lewd acts with 23 boys and girls ages 6 to 10, according to the Associated Press.
The investigation began when a film processor gave authorities about 40 photographs depicting blindfolded children in a classroom with their mouths taped shut.
Some of the photos showed girls with what appears to be a spoon up to their mouths as if they were going to ingest a clear-white liquid. A spoon and container found in trash in Berndt's classroom tested positive for semen, the sheriff's department statement said.
Some of the children's mouths and faces had large, live Madagascar-type cockroaches on them, according to the statement.
Some photos showed Berndt with his arm around the children or with his hand over their mouths.
