LYNWOOD — The arrest of former Firebaugh High School Principal Jonas Silverio last week on 17 counts of lewd acts upon a child apparently wasn’t his first brush with the law.
Silverio was taken into custody July 8 at Los Angeles International Airport by agents with the county Sheriff’s Department Special Victims Bureau, the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was returning to the country after a trip to the Philippines.
A search of criminal records turned up a 1995 conviction against Silverio in Glendale Superior Court for one count of lewd acts on a child.
In that case, according to the District Attorney’s Press Deputy Sandi Gibbons, Silverio plead no contest to that one count in January 1995. That felony, however was dismissed and reduced to a misdemeanor that April, when Silverio was placed on non-supervised probation for three years.
According to the case file, on Aug. 26, 1995 the misdemeanor charge was “expunged,” or formally erased from Silverio’s record.
The prior case against Silverio has raised questions about how the former administrator had been able to work at several public and private schools since 1995.
Although school district officials and Sheriff’s Department investigators are not commenting publicly, there have been some concerns raised about whether the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing was notified of the 1995 case.
And, according to sources close to the investigation, there were other incidents as well, including one at a private school in 1996 in Los Angeles, and another in 2001 at a Whittier school.
According to one source, investigators could not find any personnel record of Silverio being employed at the private school, although he may have been on the payroll.
Detectives are still looking into that case, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman said. In the Whittier incident, an investigation was reportedly conducted by the school, but no police report was ever made.
School district sources said Silverio’s history first came to the district’s attention sometime around 2005 or 2006. At the time, the school board was told the concern was “being looked into” by district officials.
Last December, school board members got wind of recent allegations but because it was a “personnel matter,” the district decided it had to move slowly. While law enforcement authorities were notified and questioned possible victims, nothing could be substantiated. Board members then asked the district’s legal counsel to conduct an administrative investigation in January.
“It’s very important that even though we couldn’t say anything and our hands were tied, that people know that we didn’t drag our feet on this matter,” school board member Rachel Chavez said. “These were very serious accusations, so we had to be very careful about how we handled the situation. … But basically we were given a gag order by our own counsel.”
Some relief came in February when it was learned that the Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Bureau was investigating the allegations, but school district officials, were still ordered to keep quiet, not just because of liability issues, but to not interfere with the active investigation.
In May, when the district had more information, Silverio was placed on administrative leave with pay.
While no one at the district level to this day wants to confirm what the administrative investigation turned up, it is said that Silverio on his own recognizance some time during the administrative investigation notified the district he would submit his resignation. Board members however, did not receive a resignation from Silverio until their June 10 meeting, which they accepted on a 5-0 vote. The resignation was effective June 30.
According to the lead detective on the case, Det. Marvin Jaramilla, law enforcement officials learned in May that Silverio had fled the country and did not know if he would return.
After flagging his passport, Det. Jaramilla was notified by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials July 7 that Silverio had purchased a ticket for Los Angeles. He was arrested the next day at the airport. His bail has been set at $1 million and he is being held at the Sheriff’s downtown Twin Towers.
Because this is still an “open case,” detectives say they cannot say very much about the investigation.
Sgt. Peter Hahn of the Special Victims Bureau, however, said he has seen a large amount of calls come into the department regarding the Silverio investigation with more leads, and possibly more victims, “but it’s too early to say anything about those calls,” he said.
The charges behind all 17 counts have to do with lewd acts upon a child between the ages of 14 to 15 years of age, where the suspect [Silverio] would have been 10 years older than the victims, said Sgt. Dan Scott, a spokesman for the Special Victims Bureau.
How could something like this get by any school district or school?
“That’s a good question,” said Sgt. Scott. “The records disappeared from the one school, so we don’t know how many others disappeared. We are also looking at the Whittier victim, who was investigated by the school, but yet there was no police report.”
While a school district’s administrative investigation can hinder a law enforcement investigation, Det. Jaramilla said that the Lynwood investigation, was a good move by board members.
“The thing is, that we didn’t know the extent of the allegations, but student safety was first,” Chavez said. “I can’t comment anymore than that. All I can say is that all of this is beyond belief, and a lot of people are walking around here like zombies. I don’t think anyone knows what to say about this. I don’t think there are words to describe how some people feel about this.”
A former Firebaugh teacher said he didn’t have any qualms about talking about Silverio. He doesn’t want his named used for fear of retaliation, but said that “Silverio was good at brainwashing people.”
“We all knew he had a special relationship with the girls on the volleyball team, and with their coach,” said the former Firebaugh teacher. “There are a lot of us who saw how he manipulated parents and teachers and students. We knew he had pool parties at his home, and that he kept students at the school late at night. They even went to the mountains once with some of the kids, but we didn’t know things were this bad.”
The teacher said that the former principal would get rid of all of the teachers who wouldn’t join his “yes man clan.”
“If you weren’t Silverio’s yes man, you were removed,” he said. “All the teachers at Firebaugh are getting a bad rap right now, but I can tell you that there are a lot of good teachers over there who basically did what they had to do to protect their jobs. But it doesn’t make them bad teachers.”
Silverio was not a volleyball coach at Firebaugh. He was more like an advisor, and served as an assistant to the team.
What surprises the teacher is that Silverio’s background check turned up clean.
Hired sometime between 2001-02 by Lynwood, it appears that Silverio’s background check did come out clean, said a high-ranking district official.
“If I had a daughter who went to Firebaugh, hell yes, I would be [angry] that this guy’s record turned up clean,” said the teacher. “But I have to speak up for a lot of us at Firebaugh, and some of us who aren’t there anymore. We were in the dark about lewd acts. We saw out of the ordinary things, like Silverio keeping students after school and stuff, but I never saw anything like this.”
An 11th grade student at Lynwood High School, who said she transferred out of Firebaugh because she didn’t fit in, said she has friends who were close to Silverio.
“I thought it was weird, that they liked him so much. I didn’t see anything special about him, but he didn’t treat all of us the same,” she said. “He had some favorites.”
The Wave was told that one father confronted Silverio at one point and told him to “stop calling” his house late at night to speak with his daughter, and to “stop texting” his daughter.
It is said that the administrative investigation revealed unprofessional conduct on Silverio’s behalf, but that inappropriate behavior was not founded, according to one source.
Silverio had been with the Lynwood school district for at least eight years. He was an assistant principal at Lynwood High School, and he was principal of the district’s first Ninth Grade Academy at Hosler the year before the new Firebaugh 9th Grade Academy opened.
Some 12th graders in Firebaugh’s first graduating were refusing to accept their diplomas because Silverio hadn’t signed them. Acting Principal Cheri Tuinstra signed the diplomas.
“Every application should be checked and double checked,” said Det. Jaramilla. “So I don’t know how he [Silverio] got through the process, I just don’t know. … It should have been red-flagged somewhere down the line.”
Silverio’s 1995 conviction came up in Det. Jaramilla’s criminal check of Silverio, so it is a question he too is looking into further: How did Silverio’s history get past the state and school districts?
It was not very hard to trace Silverio’s history, said Jaramilla. “I don’t know how he got through the process. … I don’t know how this got through,” he said. “We have a lot of concerns with that [that] we will be looking into.”
Lee Pope, a general counsel for the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing, said Wednesday that according to his files, there is a Jonas Vital Silverio with a valid credential in the state of California. If he is credentialed, then that means, his background must have cleared, Pope said.
“Mr. Silverio could have been charged with one thing, but convicted of another,” Pope said, adding that he would need to order Silverio’s file from 1995 in order to accurately say whether the commission was notified of any type of conviction. “But even if it was a misdemeanor conviction of sex with a child, then it’s still mandatory that we be notified. We can’t take action as to what you’re charged with, only of what you’re convicted of. … I’ll have to get back to you with this information.”
If Silverio has been officially charged with sex offenses, said Pope adding that he will be calling Compton Court as soon as possible, then the commission would have to suspend Silverio’s credential pending the outcome of the case.
Det. Jaramilla said there is no doubt that Silverio was “convicted of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in 1995. … It should have turned up in any criminal background check. … There’s no doubt about it. … He was charged and convicted of the same crime.”
Silverio is scheduled to be arraigned in Compton Superior Court Aug. 11 at 8:30 a.m.
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