SARATOGA (KRON) — Representatives with Walden West are admitting at a former supervisor, who has since been arrested on sex crime charges, ‘over-played’ his job history.
27-year-old Edgar Covarrubias was arrested in May, charged with seven felony charges. The counts include committing a lewd and lascivious act on a child under the age of 14 and possessing more than 600 images of child pornography and manufacturing and distributing child pornography, Deputy District Attorney David Shabaglian said.
Each staff member at the camp has a nickname relating to the program’s environmental theme. Students knew Covarrubias as “Papa Bear,” Santa Clara County education officials said.
Walden West is a weeklong science program by the Santa Clara County Office of Education for fifth and sixth grade students.
Covarrubias started working at Walden West in 2013, eventually becoming night manager. That is the position he held at the time of his arrest and was a position where he often interacted with students.
When Covarrubias was first arrested, county education officials said he had undergone standard background screening procedures and fingerprint clearance by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Now, representatives from the district say that Covarrubias ‘over-played’ or exaggerated his job history, saying he had extensive work with the YMCA.
Representatives with the YMCA says that he was only employed there as a program aide who helped teachers for five moths between 2007 and 2008.
They acknowledge that did volunteered there a couple of times before that.
No reference checks were ever done, but the district it is not policy to make reference calls on volunteers, which is what Covarrubias was when he started.
The district said that nothing turned up on Covarrubias’ fingerprint background check.