| What should Linda Watson have done to repair the harm done by her crimes? She had two choices: either retract the allegations she made (on February 10, 2001) when she called Richard Werlin at his home, or come forward and make the allegations openly, so that Maura Larkins could respond to them. |
| Chula Vista Elementary School District Castle Park Elementary School |
| Linda Watson Report 1 February 10, 2001 On Saturday night, at about 8:30 in the evening, Castle Park Elementary teachers Linda Watson and Jo Ellen Hamilton called Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin at his home within a few minutes of each other. They made reports which caused a fellow Castle Park Elementary teacher to be removed from her classroom and placed on administrative leave. |
| May 14, 2007 Lawsuit Against Chula Vista Educators, fmr President Gina Boyd and Linda Watson |
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| The entire problem could have been solved with no money spent on legal fees by anybody if Watson had simply come forward and stated her allegations openly and honestly. Instead, she worked with Robin Donlan and Gina Boyd, Chula Vista Educators president, to cover up a series of crimes that evolved from misdemeanors to felonies and cost the school district hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend. Cheryl Cox, Patrick Judd, Pamela Smith, Bertha Lopez, and Larry Cunningham, school board members, and their lawyers, Stutz, Artiano & Shinoff, demanded that teachers commit perjury to cover up the Castle Park Crime Wave. |
On Thursday (April 19, 2001) of the week Maura Larkins came back to school, she brought two unopened bags of tortilla chips for the monthly birthday celebration. Strangely, Kathy Bingham didn't seem worried about poisoned food then! She was gobbling up her lunch as if she had no worries at all. Maura Larkins wanted her reputation cleared after she came back. She wanted to give Kathy a chance to light-heartedly retract the slander. "You know, I brought some of the food today," she told Kathy. It would have been appropriate for Kathy to say I don't really think you're a potential murderer. I was just joking when I said you might have poisoned the food. But Kathy didn't say that. She stopped eating, and curled her lip, clearly confirming Stephenie's report about Kathy's attitude. Kathy said, with an expression of distaste, "What did you bring?" "I'm not telling you that," Larkins said, not wanting Kathy to repeat her earlier accusations, or to make a scene regarding the tortilla chips. If Kathy really thought there was a poisoner on the staff, Kathy should have stopped eating, and warned other staff members to stop eating. Kathy kept eating, but never retracted her ugly accusation. After school, Maura Larkins was passing Kathy in the hall. Kathy said nothing. Maura Larkins said, "You're looking good. You're going to be all right." Larkins meant that Kathy's suggestions that Maura would poison food were false, and that Kathy had obviously suffered no harm from eating Maura's food. But Kathy Bingham used these remarks to convince Linda Watson that more action needed to be taken against Maura Larkins. It wasn't hard. While Larkins had been on leave, Linda Watson had told Maria Beers that Maura Larkins was the type of person who became a mass murderer. "We're scared of her. Her way of doing things is so different from ours." Bingham was planting seeds of fear in very fertile soil. Watson was already terrified that Maura Larkins would find out that Linda Watson had committed crimes against Maura Larkins. |
| Administrative Law Judge H. James Ahler |
| The next day, Friday, April 20, 2001, Linda Watson invented a false story about Maura Larkins, and by that evening, Maura Larkins was once again taken out of her classroom. Watson's co-conspirators gathered up people to make accusations, but the only other person besides Linda who would go on the record was Al Smith, whose report, in writing, is bizarre in its inanity. Richard Werlin made himself the third accuser on April 20, 2001. He reasserted his own false statements about what happened on March 27, 2001 when he took Maura Larkins to a place where there were no witnesses. His renewed allegations had no credibility at all: Werlin had implicitly admitted that his story was false when he asked Maura Larkins to return to work eight days after the imaginary incident. To make his allegations even more unbelievable, he did not report them to Maura Larkins' health provider when she called him over and over again to find out what was going on. |
Werlin deposition:
"She lives on a
boat."
Richard Denmon
"She lives on a
boat."
Richard Denmon
speak to the principal. When Larkins finally knocked on the principal's door, Principal Gretchen Donndelinger opened it a crack, and told Larkins she would not speak to her that day. A year later Larkins learned that there were four teachers hiding behind the door that day! Assistant Superintendent Richard Werlin, Teachers Linda Watson, Richard Denmon, Kathy Bingham, Jo Ellen Hamilton and Alan Smith were allowed to say anything they wanted and have it accepted as true without question, while Larkins was not allowed even to hear the accusations against her until a year later, AFTER she had been dismissed. |
| What did they say? Jo Ellen Hamilton says she merely asked Werlin when a meeting would take place. Richard Werlin testified that she told him she feared for her life. What did Linda Watson say? Richard Werlin says she told him she feared for her life--that Maura Larkins would kill her. Watson perjured herself during deposition testimony, first saying she never called Richard Werlin, then admitting that she did call him. |
Teachers at Castle
Park Elementary
were forced to come
up with elaborate
lies to cover up the
reality of their
refusal to allow
integration of third
grade classrooms,
and their criminal
actions starting in
2000.
Park Elementary
were forced to come
up with elaborate
lies to cover up the
reality of their
refusal to allow
integration of third
grade classrooms,
and their criminal
actions starting in
2000.
| When Maura Larkins was on leave from February 12, 2001 until April 16, 2001, Castle Park Elementary School teacher Kathy Bingham pointed out provide treats for the teachers' lounge that day. "Better not eat anything," Bingham said. "Maura has lounge duty. It might be poisoned." This was reported to Maura by Stephenie Parker-Pettit, before Stephenie began helping to cover up crimes against Maura Larkins. |
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| Perjury Michael Carlson and atty Deborah K. Garvin |
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| BLOGS |
| Linda Watson Report Deposition Testimony Kathy Bingham Rumors Judge Ahler two-week suspension |
| Linda Watson Report 2 On April 20, 2001, Linda Watson made two false reports to school administrators, causing Maura Larkins to be placed on leave a second time. Why would Linda Watson make false allegations that she feared Maura Larkins would kill her? Watson had more than one motivation. One of them was that she wanted the school district to take action against Maura Larkins based on Kathleen Elton's false allegations. |
| In Linda Watson's mind, Kathy Bingham's warnings about the teachers' lounge treats spelled death |
| The following is Linda Watson's deposition testimony in Maura Larkins' dismissal hearing: Linda Watson testified: "I walked out to, you know, to my car, and I met--Kathy Bingham and Jo Ellen Hamilton were standing outside in the walkway, and Kathy Bingham was talking about something very unusual that had happened to her, and she shared it with me, because she knew I had been very upset, and, you know, all this was going on with Maura Larkins. "And what happened was, Kathy Bingham said that Maura Larkins was walking down the hallway, met Kathy Bingham in the hallway and said, "Hi Kathy. You'll be all right," and walked on, and Kathy didn't really know what that meant. She didn't understand why Maura would say that to her, and I thought that was strange too. "So I went home that evening, Thursday night. I was having dinner with my son at Fillippi's in Pacific Beach, one of our favorite restaurants. My husband was out of town, and just to relieve stress, you know, I did talk to my husband and son about the situation. My son knows Maura, and I told my son what Kathy Bingham had said, and my son looks up at me, and he was 17, a junior in high school at that time, and when I told him that Maura told Kathy that she'd be all right and walked on, my son said, "Well, Mom, she just threatened you." And I said, "What do you mean?" And he said, "She just said that Kathy was going to be all right but the rest of you were going to be dead." End of deposition quotations from page 22 line 2 to page 23 line 6. Does Linda Watson have critical thinking abilities? Is she able to guide young people toward rational thinking? When the school district lawyer, Mark Bresee, who was sitting next to Ms. Watson heard this testimony, why didn't he advise the district to get some psychological help for Ms. Watson? Or advise that Watson be dismissed for perjury? Because Mr. Bresee was deeply involved in covering up the district's wrongdoing, and was interested only in covering up the district's crimes, not in restoring sanity to the frenzied, irrational staff district's legal game. district's legal game. Linda Watson's deposition testimony continued: "And I had never even thought of it that way, but at that moment, like, a wave of nausea just hit me. I sat there and almost got sick, and I said, "Whoa." But because of all the school shootings and things, and all the counseling they gave our kids at the high school, my son identified that as a potential threat." Maura Larkins finally insisted, after two years of having her 100% Hispanic class being excluded from the grade level social studies and science teaming, that her children be involved. This made Linda Watson very angry. Page 23 Watson deposition testimony: "When [Maura] wants something, she's just, by gosh, we're going to do it, no matter what." Watson is clearly referring to Maura's insistence that her 100% Hispanic class be integrated into the academic program of the monolingual classes for a few minutes each day. This was the only thing Maura ever insisted on, and it angered Linda Watson greatly. Watson told Larkins that Watson opposed the bilingual program. Watson had been virulently opposed to the program before it started in September 1994, and had clearly not come to accept it when she spoke these words in September 2002 (eight years later). Maura Larkins was not the type of person who made frequent complaints to the principal. For example, Maura Larkins made one complaint, then dropped it, during the fourth year of having her class assigned to sit in the back of the auditorium during assemblies. Larkins pointed out to the principal that her students, being limited in English, would benefit more than English speakers from hearing better what was being said during assemblies. Dr. Donndelinger answered that the seating chart could not be changed. Maura Larkins complained very little, even when she was the targeted for harassment by Richard Denmon, Jo Ellen Hamilton, Allan Smith, and Robin Donlan. Teacher Richard Denmon told Maura Larkins to leave grade level meetings when he was ready to discuss the English-only teaming program. Robin Donlan told Maura Larkins to sit at another table during an inservice. Donlan stated a few days later, "Rick always gets me in trouble." It was clear that Denmon had told Donlan what to say on this occasion. Donlan and Larkins had never had any negative interaction until Donlan's bizarre instruction to sit somewhere else than with her grade level. But Denmon's head was close to Donlan's ear when Donlan gave the order, and Denmon was staring at Maura Larkins like a guilty kid with a stolen cookie in his pocket. Interestingly enough, Robin Colls Donlan is using this same excuse in 2007 in an FBI investigation of how she came to receive $7.7 million dollars worth of profits from illegal stock option sales. She claims her husband got her in trouble. Regarding her conspiracy to illegally obtain arrest records of an innocent person, Donlan blames Linda Watson, Richard Werlin, and others who brought her crime to light when they took action against Maura Larkins as a result of Donlan's crime. |
| Administrative Law Judge H. James Ahler Was Suspended for Unjudicial Behavior for summoning Barbara Abeyta and Terry Olson into a small side room during a court hearing when he heard about Watson's fear of mass murder. |
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| SAN DIEGO EDUCATION REPORT |
| mauralarkins.com |
| The Linda Watson story gets even more bizarre when the Office of Administrative Hearings gets involved. During Maura Larkins' dismissal hearing, when Maura Larkins testified about Linda Watson's fear that she was "going to be dead," Administrative Judge Ahler jumped up and stood a while, while everyone else in the hearing room sat silently at attention. Then Ahler went into a small side room, about three feet from the witness chair where Maura Larkins was sitting. Ahler motioned the two other panelists of the Commission on Professional Competence (Barbara Abeyta and Terry Olson) to come into the room with him. They trotted over obediently. Out of the hearing of the court reporter, the judge told the panelists (within the hearing of Maura Larkins) that they were to disregard what Maura Larkins had just said. He told them the panelists that because Larkins didn't know about Watson's attitude at the time she made her allegations against Larkins, the allegations didn't have anything to do with Larkins' state of mind. No--of course not--but the allegations certainly did have a lot to do with LINDA WATSON'S STATE OF MIND! The accuser was clearly unreliable! Watson had a strong motive to lie, to invent a story that would cause Larkins to be removed again. This motive is in addition to her motive of not wanting Larkins to find out that Watson had committed a crime against Larkins. Perhaps Watson's guilty knowlege that she had harmed Larkins made her come up with the absurd notion that Larkins would use some forum other than a legal one to seek redress. The six years that have passed since 2001 have proven that Larkins is interested only in telling the truth, and pursuing justice in the courts. As he gave instructions to the two panelists out of hearing of the court reporter, Ahler realized that Larkins could hear him. He shut the door, and remained behind the door for about 10 minutes. When he came back out, he made no mention of the bizarre trip to the side room. The court reporter began recording again as if nothing had happened. For these actions and other misbehavior in this case, Judge Ahler was placed on a two-week suspension. |
| Education Reform Talking to Kids Homework Book Boondoggle? Phonics Spanking Nat'l Board Certif Ordinary People Writing Sample Toss Democracy School Violence |
| lie to become a delusion? Did Linda Watson at some point begin to believe her own lies? Some people believe that she was truly afraid for her life. I think that Ms. Watson is very good at launching into hysteria at will. And I think that it's hard to behave hysterically without feeling a bit of hysteria. |