Former Atascadero teacher accused of making child porn says police search was illegal
A former teacher at the Atascadero Fine Arts Academy accused of secretly taking lewd photos and videos of his sixth-grade students wants a judge to throw out evidence he says was illegally obtained by police.
Chris Lynn Berdoll is charged with 24 counts of using a minor for sex acts and 20 counts of possessing child pornography after he allegedly filmed at least 14 girls now between the ages of 10 and 15 from March 2017 to September 2018, according to the complaint filed in San Luis Obispo Superior Court.
Each charge carries a maximum of three years in state prison, the filing states.
Berdoll had taught at the Atascadero Fine Arts Academy since August 2011 before he was placed on paid administrative leave on Aug. 31, 2018, prior to his Sept. 10 arrest.
He formally resigned from his position on Sept. 27.
Berdoll, 50, has been out of jail since posting his $500,000 bail. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on Oct. 18, 2018.
In September 2018, he waived his right to a preliminary hearing in which testimony and evidence against him would have been presented in open court and his attorney would have had the opportunity to cross-examine witnesses.
Instead, a Superior Court judge found probable cause to uphold all 44 counts against Berdoll and move his case toward trial, though a trial date has not yet been scheduled.
In May, Berdoll hired defense attorney Ilan Funke-Bilu, who is scheduled to argue the merits of officers’ search of his client’s search Thursday before Superior Court Judge Jesse Marino.
Teacher claims ‘warrantless search and seizure’
The Title IX report detailing the district’s investigation described at least seven instances in the first two weeks of the school year in August 2018 in which Berdoll allegedly used his smartphone or tablet to record the backsides, legs, and crotches of female students in his sixth-grade math class.
In each of the scenarios described in the report, Berdoll clandestinely recorded his students in a manner noticeable enough that at times he ended up touching their bodies or clothing in the process.
One of two court motions filed by Funke-Bilu on Nov. 12 seeks to suppress all evidence investigators obtained from Berdoll’s Google Pixel 2 cell phone and smart watch, as well as any observations made by the arresting officers and any statement made by Berdoll.
The motion to suppress states that on the afternoon of Aug. 30, 2018, after the district reported the alleged conduct, Atascadero Det. Diego Segovia was assigned to surveil Berdoll and saw him leave Berdoll’s residence while another detective was working on getting a search warrant signed by a judge.
Segovia conducted a traffic stop at 5:11 p.m. after Berdoll allegedly failed to make a complete stop at a stop sign, and detained Berdoll with the help of a patrol officer, who collected Berdoll’s phone and watch, the filing states.
Berdoll was detained outside his vehicle without arrest for approximately 77 minutes, Funke-Bilu wrote, under the pretense that the second detective, Det. Ryan Sloan, wanted to speak with him about an ongoing investigation.
The motion states that Sloan did not obtain the warrant until 6:08 p.m.; he arrived at the scene at 6:29 p.m., the filing says.
“In the present case, Mr. Berdoll has asserted ... that the police acted without a warrant and that certain fruits were obtained as a result of the warrantless search and seizure,” Funke-Bilu wrote. “Therefore, the burden is now on the prosecution to justify the warrantless search and seizure.”
The attorney argues that “a seizure of a person implicates the Fourth Amendment (against unreasonable search and seizure) when a law enforcement officer, by show of authority, ‘has in some way restrained the liberty of a citizen.’” He argues that a person is detained if “a reasonable person in the suspect’s position would not have felt free to leave.”
A second motion filed by Funke-Bilu seeks to have the court strike each of the 20 charges of possessing child pornography, which he argues each resulted from a search of Berdoll’s computers and hard drives on Aug. 30, 2018.
DA’s Office responds
Deputy District Attorney Lisa Muscari in a response filed Friday wrote that the search of Berdoll’s devices produced images of 16 girls from 2016 to August 2018, and several girls shown in videos were identified as Berdoll’s students.
Muscari wrote that she plans to argue before Judge Marino that Det. Sloan shared information with Segovia about allegations against Berdoll prior to the traffic stop, establishing probable cause to arrest him.
“While if a mere detention, 77 minutes may objectively be too long to hold a defendant; however, the (officer) here had probable cause to arrest (Berdoll), so the time of detention is irrelevant,” Muscari wrote. “Here, Officer Segovia believed that the defendant was going to Back-to-School Night, which they were trying to prevent.”
The prosecutor argues that 77 minutes is not an unreasonable amount of time to detain someone while a warrant is en route, and that a defendant need not be arrested in order for officers to confiscate his electronic devices.
The devices, including those found in Berdoll’s home, were only searched after the warrant was obtained, Muscari wrote.
