A 4-year-old student at a UCLA childcare center was reported to child protective services for exhibiting symptoms of sexual abuse in May 2018. UCPD and LAPD both received notice of the incident, but both law enforcement agencies closed their cases without arresting anyone or interviewing the child or their parents.
Nearly six years later, the student’s teacher was arrested for a separate case of child sexual abuse.
The Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services concluded that the report of the abuse was unfounded, the child’s parent said. LAPD and UCPD told the child’s parent they closed their cases.
Former UCPD Operations Bureau Captain Bob Leinweber told the child’s parent UCPD was investigating the report June 11, 2018, but the two UCPD detectives assigned to the case said they did not remember investigating the incident. UCPD closed the case three days later.
The parent, who was granted anonymity to protect the identity of their child, said UCPD and UCLA have refused to release an initial police report to them as of Sept. 8. They also said they were unable to obtain an LAPD report, adding that LAPD told them in 2018 that it could not find records of a report or of its officers going to the University Village center.
Christopher Rodriguez, the child’s teacher who worked at University Village from 2001-20, was convicted of nine misdemeanor charges – including willful cruelty to a child and sexual battery against a minor – in April 2025. He had been a teacher at UCLA’s Early Care and Education centers, which mostly serve UCLA employees’ and students’ children, for nearly 25 years before he was arrested in February 2024.
The parent said a teacher at University Village reported their child to DCFS for “suspected child sexual abuse” by an unknown perpetrator May 16, 2018, after the child used sexual language uncharacteristic for their age and demonstrated sexual behavior. The child had enrolled in University Village in September 2017, and they had not previously exhibited similar behavior, the parent added.
[Related: Former UCLA childcare teacher sentenced to 7 years for child sexual abuse]
Dozens of parents and a former teacher alleged in interviews with the Daily Bruin that ECE leaders overlooked Rodriguez’s alarming behavior – including that he took children to the bathroom alone and covered vantage points into the room with butcher paper.
The parent said they pulled their child out of University Village that summer, after DCFS and UCPD said they closed their cases.
The child’s family moved to Los Angeles in August 2017. The parent said since they and their spouse had just moved to the United States, they had few acquaintances who spent time around their child other than at school.
A DCFS investigator showed up at the parent’s house May 22, 2018, and told their spouse they were being investigated as suspects in their child’s suspected sexual abuse case, the parent said. DCFS must report suspected child abuse to law enforcement, which triggered an LAPD investigation into the case. When DCFS and LAPD conduct concurrent investigations, DCFS has the authority to determine whether the child requires protective services, while law enforcement determines if a crime has occurred.
UCPD was only notified of the case after an initial police report was made by LAPD, a spokesperson for UCPD said in an emailed statement. UCPD has the primary jurisdiction to respond to all crimes on UC campuses and properties, as well as within a one-mile radius of campus, according to Section 92600 of the California Education Code.
Rodriguez was sentenced in June to seven years in jail but appealed his conviction and was later released on bond, according to the LA County Sheriff’s Department inmate locator. The LA County Superior Court issued a warrant for Rodriguez on Feb. 9 after he did not show up to a scheduled court appearance. As of Aug. 21, he was still at large.
Rodriguez was allowed to post bail while his appeals were pending because his charges were misdemeanors, not felonies, said Danielle De Smeth, a lawyer whose firm represents 15 families impacted by the abuse.
A spokesperson for UCLA Media Relations said in an emailed statement that it could not answer The Bruin’s questions about ECE’s involvement in the investigation and problems with leadership communication because the information was confidential and would infringe upon the privacy of the involved family and impact pending litigation.
“The safety of children entrusted to UCLA’s care is a top priority and a responsibility the university has always treated with the utmost seriousness,” they said in the statement. “UCLA recognizes the impact these issues have had on the Bruin community.”
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Darnell Hunt announced Aug. 13 that UCLA’s ECE centers – including Krieger and University Village – would shut down in June 2027 because of enrollment and financial issues. Hunt did not mention the sexual abuse case in his email announcement to parents.
[Related: UCLA childcare program, which faced 2024 sex abuse case, to close amid budget deficit]
Alleged mismanagement from administrators
Parents and a former teacher alleged that administrators overlooked red flags in Rodriguez’s classroom.
The parent of the child reported for symptoms of sexual abuse said they raised concerns about which teachers were taking their child to the bathroom and how to Universiy Village director Nikki Zomorodi and then-ECE director Deb Valentine both in a June 5, 2018, meeting and a May 24, 2018, email obtained by The Bruin.
Zomorodi told the parent in a May 31, 2018, email obtained by The Bruin that she changed the bathroom procedures in Rodriguez’s University Village classroom to mandate that two teachers be present if a child had to use the restroom.
“I had the opportunity to discuss your concerns with group four’s staff and they were very open and responsive to adjusting our processes,” Zomorodi said in the email. “I have had the opportunity to help in this process and I witnessed firsthand how easily they have adjusted to the new practices.”
Zomorodi did not respond to a request for comment on whether she changed the bathroom policy in Rodriguez’s classroom after the report of abuse in 2018.
But after Rodriguez’s 2024 arrest, his victims testified that they were abused in the bathroom at Krieger, which he transferred to after leaving University Village in 2020.
A teacher who worked with Rodriguez at Krieger, a separate center Rodriguez moved to in 2020, said Rodriguez would take children – often individually – to the bathroom by himself at awkward times in the day when the other teachers were outside the building and frequently spent a long amount of time in the bathroom with children. The teacher, who was granted anonymity because of fear of retaliation from ECE and Rodriguez, added that Rodriguez’s bathroom practices violated common practice at Krieger.
Rodriguez’s victims at Krieger were abused by Rodriguez when in the bathroom, parents told The Bruin and children testified at his first trial.
Black opaque butcher paper covered a plexiglass divider, windows and other vantage points into the bathroom in Rodriguez’s Krieger classroom, dozens of parents whose children were in his class from 2021-23 told The Bruin. The teacher also said they ripped down the black butcher paper from the bathroom in Rodriguez’s classroom multiple times because they thought it was unnecessary and strange. The paper was always back up, usually by the next day, they added.
When visiting their child’s classroom throughout the school year, the parent of the child reported for symptoms of sexual abuse said they noticed the room was not clean and did not have much light. Rodriguez was inattentive to students and frequently spent time on his phone, and the classroom experienced high teacher turnover, the parent alleged.
“The overall way they ran this program was so arrogant,” the parent said. “They weren’t willing to look inward, weren’t willing to take my concerns and directives about the issues seriously.”
The parent also said the classroom’s lead teacher left abruptly in the middle of the school year without an explanation, making Rodriguez the lead teacher.
“Any administrator who hears the nature of how that little (child) was acting and that somebody from inside made that report would know that there is a real serious problem,” De Smeth said. “And your (Zomorodi’s) job, just like UCPD and DCFS, should have been to figure out what was causing that behavior, but nobody wanted to dig into it.”
Lack of communication from administrators and police amid investigation
Communication with police and administrators was slow, painful and fruitless, the parent said. Zomorodi and Valentine repeatedly denied the parent’s requests for teachers to explain his child’s behavior and did not allow the parent to meet with the teachers, the parent said.
“Nobody ever talked to us once about our kid,” the parent said. “Everything was fine, we thought. Now we’re learning about concerning language and this behavior.”
Brad Erickson – the former executive director of UCLA campus services enterprises, a unit in charge of mail services, real estate and risk management – oversaw ECE until June 2018. Erickson frequently told the parent conflicting information about whether LAPD or UCPD was investigating the case, according to emails obtained by The Bruin.
Erickson told the parent UCPD detectives investigated University Village on June 7, 2018. However, on the same day, Erickson corrected himself and claimed LAPD was investigating the case, according to emails obtained by The Bruin.
The parent asked Erickson for clarification on whether UCPD or LAPD was investigating the case, and Erickson said in an email back that he believed both UCPD and LAPD had investigated the case at some point but encouraged the parent to contact both to figure it out.
“I believe UCPD contacted LAPD and will have jurisdiction and will handle the case from the PD perspective,” Erickson said in the email. “I suggest you ask the LAPD folks you are in contact with to reach out to Officer Berkeland of UCPD. I will also advise our chief of this so that the PD’s can coordinate.”
Leinweber said in a June 11, 2018, email to the parent that though LAPD originally responded to the case after being notified by child protective services, UCPD also dispatched Officer John Berkeland to complete a police report. Leinweber added in the email that the case was later reassigned to UCPD Detective Justin Bell.
“We will make sure LAPD knows we are handling the investigation,” Leinweber said in the email.
Leinweber declined to comment on how, if at all, UCPD investigated.
Berkeland, who now works for the Anaheim Police Department, said he did not remember responding to an incident of child sexual abuse at University Village or the case at all.
When a private investigator hired by De Smeth, who represents the family, interviewed Berkeland about the case, he said he believed he would have remembered a case like it because of the victim’s young age and the nature of the case.
Bell, who was a detective in UCPD’s investigations division in sex crimes, also said he did not remember responding to a case of sexual abuse at the University Village preschool. Bell, who is now an investigator for Monterey’s district attorney office, added that he was confident he would have remembered an investigation involving a young child and that he does not remember conducting interviews.
“No one has any recollection of going and investigating this,” De Smeth said.
UCPD said in an Aug. 24 emailed statement that it decided to close its case after it contacted DCFS, which said it believed no crime was committed. UCPD Operations Bureau Captain Jeffrey Chobanian said UCPD officers were dispatched to University Village to respond to the case but did not conduct further interviews.
Eileen Aguirre, the DCFS investigator on the case, said in an emailed statement that she could not share information about the case but that law enforcement investigations should be conducted independently from DCFS. Law enforcement should not rely on DCFS to conduct any aspect of its investigation, according to the LA Sheriff’s Department website.
Chobanian, who was a UCPD detective in 2018, told the parent June 21, 2018, that the case was closed – almost a week after UCPD had officially ended it June 14. The parent said they had to ask UCPD for information on the case more than six times to no response or very little information provided.
“I’m not sure why ECE, nor myself, were not previously advised of this the week before,” the parent said. “Why did the police department not tell us we were cleared? It was me constantly having to go back and ask where this was.”
Neither LAPD nor UCPD ever gave the parent a police report, they said. UCPD cited the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act – a California state law that outlines suspected child abuse reporting and requires that mandated reporters remain confidential – as its reason for not sharing the police report in 2018, according to emails obtained by The Bruin.
“I have determined that the police report regarding this incident is confidential,” said former Lieutenant Scott Scheffler in a June 27, 2018, email to the parent. “I can confirm, as you have learned from various sources, that it was determined that no crime occurred. As a result, UCPD will not be taking any further action on the matter.”
Reports made by mandated reporters to CPS cannot be released to parents of victims and are always meant to remain confidential, according to CANRA. However, Elena Orta, a retired LAPD detective supervisor in the sex crimes division, said it is common practice at LAPD to release a crime report – which is generated by law enforcement agencies during investigation – to the parents of a victim of child sexual abuse.
Chobanian confirmed UCPD never made a crime report. UCPD said in an emailed statement that it documented case information in an incident report.
Brent Hopkins, a detective for LAPD’s Operations-West Bureau in the special assault section, said UCPD could have decided not to generate a crime report because it saw no reason to investigate further – or because the involved officers did not do their due diligence. Chobanian said UCPD did not take a police report because it believed LAPD and DCFS were handling the case.
Orta said police agencies determine if a criminal report should be generated based on its interviews with the suspected victim and related parties. The parent said in a texted statement that UCPD never interviewed them or their spouse.
“If it’s a sexual abuse allegation, they should have attempted to interview the 4-year-old and the parents,” Orta said.
UCPD refused to release an initial report even after the parent offered that the mandated reporter and other confidential information be redacted, according to emails obtained by The Bruin.
“UCPD continuously cited an investigative privilege, which is really unusual, because typically if they don’t file a case against anyone, then the victim gets a copy of the police report, and they were the victim, and they were told, ‘Sorry, you can’t have it,’” De Smeth said. “Now, even years later, when I was brought in, they wouldn’t give it to me either.”
The parent requested the report again after Rodriguez was arrested in 2024, but UCPD and UCLA still refused to give it to them.
“I really have no idea what the police did,” the parent said.
Erickson’s poor communication continued after the investigation was completed and both parents were cleared as suspects, the parent alleged.
Erickson told the parent over emails obtained by The Bruin that he would meet with them to discuss the investigation and potential improvements at University Village after the case was closed. Erickson promised the parent a casual lunch meeting in Westwood on June 27, 2018, according to an email sent June 20, but he canceled the day before they were supposed to meet.
“As previously noted, we consider this matter closed, and you have been heard,” Erickson said in the email. “If you wish to submit constructive suggestions and feedback regarding your experience at ECE, you can do so in writing to Deb. Again, to be clear, as this matter is closed, and as ECE will no longer be reporting to me, I will not be responding further.”
Though Erickson agreed to a meeting for the next week June 20, by June 27 he refused the meeting and said he was no longer in charge of ECE.
The School of Education and Information Studies – then called the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies – gained jurisdiction of ECE in fall 2018. Education and Information Studies Dean Tina Christie and Georgia Lazo, associate dean of the University Partnership Schools at UCLA, currently oversee the childcare centers.
Task force suggestions and red flags ignored
Less than a year before the child began at University Village, a task force commissioned by then-Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Scott Waugh found that ECE suffered from low teacher morale, poor communication from administrators and confusion about procedures.
The task force also found that ECE lacked administrators with a background in education and childcare center management, which contributed to a problematic environment.
“The relationship of ECE to the organization of the larger university community needs urgent clarification,” the task force said in the report. “The problems at ECE, while in no way caused by its administrative location, have been exacerbated by the absence of high level administrative guidance that can best be provided by someone with knowledge and background in educational administration.”
Despite the task force recognizing that Erickson was not the right person to manage ECE in early 2017, he continued to oversee the program until after the 2018 investigation into a child’s sexual abuse. Erickson retired in 2020 from his role, though he lost purview of ECE in June 2018.
The task force also encouraged the creation of a new administrative director position for ECE in 2017 that would oversee human resources, compliance, finances and Title IX because an administrator external from ECE taking on those tasks was ineffective.
Waugh announced a role similar to the administrative role described in the task force – a senior director of UCLA’s K-12 schools, including ECE, Geffen Academy and the Lab School – in an April 2018 letter to parents.
The position was not filled until July 2019.
Waugh did not respond to a request for comment on why some of the task force’s suggestions had slow implementation and why some were never implemented at all.
[Related: Childcare teachers reported understaffing years before coworker’s arrest, document shows]
The parent said they did not know anything about the task force’s report when their child started at University Village, as it was only released to parents who sent their children to ECE for the 2016-17 academic year. However, the parent added in a texted statement that they would not have enrolled their child at ECE if they had read about the task force’s opinions on ECE’s mismanagement and poor teacher turnover.
When the parent learned about the report from other parents in the class, they emailed Waugh for the report. Waugh never replied, but Michael Goldstein, the chair of the task force and a professor emeritus at the Fielding School of Public Health, responded.
Goldstein asked in the email for the parent to explain his relationship to ECE and why the parent wanted the report before he gave it to them. In response, the parent asked Goldstein to clarify his relationship to UCLA and the task force.
A day later, Goldstein responded.
“I’m sorry but I’ve been instructed not to have further direct communication with you about this matter,” Goldstein said in response
Goldstein said in an interview that he received hundreds of emails during his time as chair of the task force.
The parent said they eventually obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act request, adding that they believed the issues brought up in the report persisted while their child was at University Village.
“Either they were covering it up and were hiding it the whole time, or they didn’t do their job,” the parent said
