Los Angeles Times

School official charged with sexual abuse

- By Adam Elmahrek WeTip.com.

An assistant principal at a San Bernardino County high school has been arrested on charges of repeatedly sexually abusing a girl who was 7 and 8 years old at the time of the alleged crimes, authoritie­s said.

Matthew Lin Johnson, a 42-year-old assistant principal at Oak Hills High School, was charged last week with continuous sexual abuse of a minor, including lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14, according to the San Bernardino County Sheriff ’s Department. Johnson was booked at the county jail and held without bail.

There is no evidence at this time that Johnson had any “inappropri­ate contact with students at the school,” authoritie­s said.

The girl, who is now 10 years old, alerted sheriff ’s officials that she had been sexually abused, prompting an investigat­ion, authoritie­s said. Johnson, a resident of Apple Valley, was identified as the suspect, according to officials.

Officials said anyone with informatio­n is encouraged to contact Deputy Vanayes Quezada with the crimes against children detail at (909) 387-3615. Anyone who wants to remain anonymous can call the WeTip Hotline at (800) 782-7463 or visit

SAN DIEGO — In October 1967, Navy meteorolog­ist Paul Grisham shipped out to Antarctica, where he worked as a weather forecaster for a science station and airport on Ross Island. Thirteen months later, he returned to his family in sunny California, but without his wallet.

On Jan. 30, Grisham, now 91, was reunited with his long-lost billfold, which was found behind a locker during the demolition of a building at McMurdo Station, the southernmo­st harbor on Earth.

Inside was Grisham’s Navy ID, his driver’s license, a tax withholdin­g statement, a recipe for homemade Kahlua and several items other so-called ice rats who worked at the station might recognize. There was a beer ration punch card, receipts for money orders sent to his wife for his poker winnings at the station, and a pocket reference card with instructio­ns for what to do in the event of an atomic, biological or chemical weapons attack. There was never any cash, as there was nothing to buy at the station.

The brown leather wallet arrived by mail in good condition after a weeks-long journey of emails, Facebook messages and letters among a group of amateur sleuths working to trace its owner. After 53 years, Grisham said he can’t even remember losing his wallet on the continent he calls “The Ice,” but he’s grateful for the efforts to return it.

“I was just blown away,” said Grisham, who lives in the San Carlos neighborho­od with his wife of 18 years, Carole Salazar. “There was a long series of people incontacte­d volved who tracked me down.”

The team who found Grisham were Stephen Decato and his daughter Sarah Lindbergh, both of New Hampshire, and Bruce McKee of the Indiana Spirit of ’45 nonprofit foundation.

It was the third lost Navy item the trio have returned to families. Last year, Decato got upset when he saw someone’s personal Navy ID bracelet for sale in a shop. He decided to buy the bracelet and, with his daughter’s help, find the owner and return it. Lindbergh found the Facebook page for McKee’s veterans tribute organizati­on and he posted a notice online that helped trace the original owner.

Before he retired six years ago, Decato worked for an agency that does snowcap research in Antarctica. When his former boss, George Blaisdell, heard about Decato’s success with the ID bracelet, he decided to mail Decato a couple of wallets that had been recovered from the building demolished at McMurdo Station in 2014.

Once again, Lindbergh reached out to McKee, who Gary Cox of the Naval Weather Service Assn., of which Grisham is a member. The second wallet belonged to a man named Paul Howard, who died in 2016, but his family was grateful to receive it.

“If it was my dad’s possession­s, I would have treasured it as I think they will,” said Lindbergh, whose grandfathe­r served in the Navy. “It was a feel-good thing to do, and both my dad and I have gone to bed thinking that another family was as happy as we are. My grandpa would be so proud, and my dad is proud to have things in their rightful places.”

Looking back on the 13 months he spent in Antarctica, Grisham said it was a memorable and sometimes tedious experience that he most remembers for the unremittin­g cold.

“Let me just say this, if I took a can of soda pop and set it outside on the step, if I didn’t retrieve it in 14 minutes it would pop open because it had frozen,” he said.

Raised in Douglas, Ariz., Grisham enlisted in the Navy in 1948. He started out as a weather technician, then moved up to forecaster and was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in Antarctica. His job took him to duty stations in Guam, Hawaii and Japan, and he twice served aboard aircraft carriers in the Pacific.

He spent four years aboard the USS Bennington in the 1950s and ’60s, and a two-year stint on the USS Hancock during the Vietnam War. He was onboard the Hancock in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon, when the ship’s flight deck crews had to push empty helicopter­s overboard to make room for new ones touching down with evacuating U.S. military personnel and refugees.

In between those shipboard assignment­s, Grisham was assigned duty in Antarctica as part of “Operation Deep Freeze,” in which the Navy provided logistical support to civilian scientists on the frozen continent. At the time, Grisham was in his mid-30s and married with two toddlers.

“I went down there kicking and screaming,” he said.

 ?? Nelvin C. Cepeda San Diego U-T ?? PAUL GRISHAM shows an item from his billfold, returned after 53 years.
Nelvin C. Cepeda San Diego U-T PAUL GRISHAM shows an item from his billfold, returned after 53 years.

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