What happened to you at De La Torre Elementary was not okay.

Wilmington. The elementary school on Island Avenue, the one everybody calls De La Torre, and the fourth-grade teacher who'd been there since 1974, the one the District Attorney charged in January 2013. He pleaded no contest. Twelve years, state prison. So far LAUSD has paid 23 families, and if you were in that classroom, or anywhere in that building, between 2009 and 2012, we think you should read on, because this is about you.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

You were in his class and your family never sued. Twenty-three families did, in 2016 and 2020. A settlement with them settles nothing for you.
You were never one of the children the police counted. He pleaded to three students. The charges named about twenty. Neither number was ever meant to be everyone.
It happened in the classroom, other kids right there. Which is exactly what a ten-year-old described on the stand in 2013, and the court didn't wave it off.
What happened to you was less than what got read out in court, or you honestly can't say what it was. You were eight, nine. Nobody expects you to have the words for it now.
You are 24 and it feels like another life. California gives someone hurt as a child until their 40th birthday, which for you lands somewhere in the 2040s. And if you're reading this for somebody else, a kid, a brother, a friend, that counts too.

The De La Torre record: the earlier complaints, the arrest, the plea, the settlements, and when

We didn't write what's below. The Los Angeles District Attorney did, and the reporters who sat through the hearings, and the lawyers who sued the district, and we link to every one. Where it says a complaint alleges something, that is all it is. The plea and the sentence are the court's.

2002 and October 2009

According to reporting on the later lawsuits, the school's principal questioned Robert Pimentel in 2002 about allegations that he had touched girls' calves and slapped their buttocks. In October 2009, by the account of the families' lawyer, at least one parent told district officials he had touched her daughter, and no report went to police. In 2013 the district's general counsel, asked by reporters, confirmed that much: a parent meeting, 2009. LAist.

March 2012

One of his fourth-graders told her mother. LAPD had an investigation open by March 15, 2012; four days after that the district pulled him out of the classroom. He retired that April, before the board could act on his dismissal. So did the principal. NBC Los Angeles.

January 23, 2013

Arrested, and charged with 15 felony counts, eight for continuous sexual abuse and seven for lewd acts upon a child. As many as 20 children may have been involved, investigators said, 19 of them his own students, and one adult coworker on top of that. Bail: $12 million. Arraigned the next day in Los Angeles Superior Court in Long Beach. CBS Los Angeles.

January 29, 2013

Twelve children and 19 parents sued LAUSD. The complaint alleges the district had a pattern of not reporting teachers suspected of abusing children. CBS Los Angeles.

March 21, 2013

Lawyers for the families said district records showed a parent complaint about Pimentel in October 2009 that was never passed to police. LAUSD's general counsel confirmed the 2009 meeting had happened, and said the district's files had gone to law enforcement. CBS Los Angeles.

May 29 and June 19, 2014

May 29 was the plea. No contest to four felony counts, one victim per count. Three of the four were his students, 6 to 10 years old; those were the lewd-act-on-a-child counts. The fourth, the continuous-sexual-abuse count, was a young relative of his, abused between 2002 and 2004. Three weeks on, Judge James B. Pierce of the Los Angeles County Superior Court gave him 12 years in state prison, and with it lifetime sex-offender registration and a ten-year stay-away order. L.A. County District Attorney.

May 18, 2016

The number was $88 million. That settled 30 cases from two schools at once: 18 De La Torre families over Pimentel, $58 million of it, and 12 families from Telfair Avenue Elementary over a different teacher, the other $30 million. The families' lawyer said the district had ignored warnings, employee reports and parent complaints. The district did not admit it. ABC7.

January 16, 2020

The Board of Education approved another $25 million in abuse settlements, $10 million of it for five more former De La Torre students. Their lawyers said the district had known about complaints and reports of past misconduct and kept him in the classroom. CBS Los Angeles.

We checked this on September 12, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from January 16, 2020. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a De La Torre Elementary lawsuit

The district. Not the teacher, or not mainly. Pimentel answered for himself in a criminal courtroom in 2014, and he is not who the 23 families sued. They sued Los Angeles Unified, because a teacher who does this answers for what he did, and a district that was told, in 2002 and again in 2009 according to the record above, and left him in front of nine-year-olds until 2012, answers for everyone he reached after that. That is the theory. It is the one LAUSD paid $68 million on without a trial.

LAUSD is a public body, and that changes three things a lawyer will walk you through. There are no punitive damages against a school district in California, ever. There is also no cap on what a jury can award for what was actually done to you. And, third, for anything at that school from January 1, 2009 on, nobody has to file a government claim form first. Straight to court, and that third thing, more than anything, is why the years on this page read 2009 to 2012 and not 1974 to 2012.

He'd been there since 1974, remember. So if your years at De La Torre came before 2009, we won't pretend the road is the same. It isn't. The revival window California opened for older public-school claims shut at the end of 2022. Say so on the call and a lawyer will tell you straight.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse at a public elementary school

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever is later. That is California's rule for anyone abused as a minor, Code of Civil Procedure 340.1, and it is the reason we ask whether you were born in 1987 or later. If you were, the door is open on age alone.

Because LAUSD is a public entity there is one more rule, and it is the one that matters most on this page. For abuse on or after January 1, 2009, you do not file a government claim first (Government Code 905(m)); the six-month claim deadline that trips up older public-school cases does not apply to you. For anything before 2009, it does, and the special window California opened for those claims (AB 218) closed on December 31, 2022. A lawyer has to look at those facts before anyone promises anything, and we won't.

Plainly: if you were in that building between 2009 and the spring of 2012, you almost certainly still have time, and you will for years. Decades, really, for a kid born in 2001 or 2002. What doesn't keep is the rest of it. Who else was in the room. Which parent went to the office in 2009. What the file said. That is the part worth one call now.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Twenty-three families did; you saw it on the news, and you kept quiet, which for a nine-year-old was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.
You liked him. Everybody's parents liked him, a man with the district since 1974. That is in the record, too, and it is part of why it worked.
It never went as far as what was in court, and you figure that means it doesn't count.
The police interviewed your family in 2012, and then, nothing. A detective's interview isn't a claim. Nobody filed anything for you.
You think the families who settled got everyone's share. They got theirs. LAUSD settled twice, four years apart, because more people came forward.
You live somewhere else now. Half of Wilmington's class of whatever-year does.

Schools covered

One school, really. George De La Torre Jr. Elementary in Wilmington, on Island Avenue; it is a kindergarten-through-eighth STEAM magnet these days. Everything that ran under its name counts, after-school programs and field trips included. A different LAUSD school, somewhere in Wilmington or San Pedro or the Harbor area? The questions still work. Answer them, and say where.

Questions people are asking

Did LAUSD know about Pimentel before 2012?

That is what the families alleged, and what the record above describes: a principal's questions in 2002, a parent complaint and a district meeting in October 2009. The district confirmed the 2009 meeting to reporters and then paid $68 million across two settlements without admitting anything. Whether it knew enough, soon enough, is the question a civil case asks.

Can I sue LAUSD over what happened at De La Torre Elementary?

Twenty-three families have, and LAUSD settled with every one of them instead of going to trial. Whether you can comes down mostly to when you were there and when you were born, which is what the questions above sort out, and if you were there between 2009 and 2012 the honest answer is yes, very likely.

Did Pimentel actually get convicted?

He did, by plea. No contest on May 29, 2014 to four felony counts: one of continuous sexual abuse, involving a relative, and three of lewd act on a child, involving three students of his. Sentence, three weeks later: 12 years in state prison, lifetime registration. The record above has the entry. The 2013 charges were bigger, 15 counts, as many as 20 children. A plea narrows the counts. It does not say the other children were wrong.

He's already in prison. What else is there?

Criminal court decides what happens to him. Civil court decides what a school district owes the children it left in his classroom, and those are different questions with different answers. Nothing in his sentence was for you.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. The lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing. Not for the call, not for the review, not for the case.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.