MERCED -- Merced County's former education chief broke state law by knowing that high school students were exposed to cancer-causing asbestos, but waiting more than a year to notify law enforcement.
Those accusations have been lobbed against former Merced County Office of Education Superintendent Lee Andersen after an investigation by the Stanislaus County district attorney's office. Prosecutors say that Andersen would have been charged with a misdemeanor had the one-year statute of limitations not run out.
Andersen, in a letter to the Merced Sun-Star, insists he acted quickly to look into the asbestos exposure. He told a grand jury that he wasn't obliged to report it "because it was in the past." He asked the people of Merced to keep an open mind in reading the report.
The critical report is the latest chapter in the Firm Build saga. Three former executives of the defunct nonprofit — Rudy Buendia III, Patrick Bowman and Joseph Cuellar — have been charged with numerous federal and state asbestos exposure violations. They are suspected of using high school students to remove asbestos from a renovation project at Castle Commerce Center, called the Automotive Training Center, from September 2005 to March 2006.
Nine students are named as victims in the Merced County district attorney's criminal case against Bowman, Buendia and Cuellar, but investigators say dozens may have been exposed to the hazardous substance.
The Merced County Office of Education had contracted with Firm Build to provide job training to high school students. Bowman, Buendia and Cuellar are suspected of using the students to remove asbestos under the guise of involving at-risk students in work experience and job training programs.
The three were first arrested in September 2008 on charges of grand theft, falsifying corporate reports, perjury and forgery. They were arrested on asbestos exposure charges in May 2010. Stanislaus County prosecutors allege Andersen knew about the asbestos exposure by October 2008, but didn't notify law enforcement until March 2010.
Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II asked Stanislaus County prosecutors to review the case to avoid a possible conflict of interest because Andersen had spoken to him about the asbestos exposure allegations. Morse could have been called as a potential witness because of that conversation.
Written by Chief Deputy District Attorney David Harris and signed by Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager, the report is based on testimony Andersen gave to the Merced County grand jury in November 2010 and Merced County district attorney's office investigative reports. Buendia, Bowman and Cuellar were all indicted on charges by the federal and county criminal grand juries.
Violation of reporter law?
The nine victims, who were about 16 and 17 between 2005 and 2006, allegedly removed asbestos from the Automotive Training Center, without the required safety equipment, on numerous occasions, under the direction of Firm Build.
Harris and Fladager claim Andersen, 65, who retired in January after serving eight years as county superintendent, broke California's mandated reporter law by not revealing his knowledge of asbestos exposure.
Called the Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act, the law obliges educators to report child abuse or neglect that's "reasonably suspected" to law enforcement within 36 hours of receiving the information. Under the law, neglect includes any act endangering the person or health of a child.
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