Similarities in Alleged Victims Cited : Investigations: All are Latino boys from low-income families, say detectives in molestation case involving a teacher.

VAN NUYS —  As Los Angeles police continue their investigation into a molestation case involving a popular elementary school teacher, several patterns have emerged among the alleged victims, whose numbers have grown from four to 10 in the last month.

All the boys, police say, are Latino and from low-income families. They come from either single-parent homes or are being raised by two working parents who have little free time and expendable income for trips and presents.

Yet, attention, and fun weekend excursions were precisely what accused molester Jeffrey Herbert Raker lavished on the youngsters, police allege. Arrested March 10 and charged with 10 counts of continuous sexual abuse, oral copulation and child molestation, Raker, 47, has pleaded not guilty and is being held in lieu of $750,000 bail in Los Angeles County Jail.

Whether economics and ethnicity make a child more susceptible to sexual abuse are points of contention among experts, most of whom agree that all children are vulnerable because they are trusting.

“Children are very responsive to people who seem to care, because they don’t see any other motive,” said Barbara Star, an associate professor at the USC School of Social Work. “All they see is the kindness and caring.”

A growing number of psychologists and sociologists are joining Hofstra University professor Charol Shakeshaft in her belief that pedophiles deliberately seek out easy prey. Shakeshaft, co-author of a recent study on sexual abuse by school employees, says class and ethnicity can indeed contribute to a child’s perceived vulnerability.

“By and large, the teachers who abused were people who chose vulnerable kids who needed attention and affection and who had difficulties in their own lives,” Shakeshaft said in an interview.

“The reasons they pick vulnerable kids is so that they won’t complain and the parents won’t notice anything.”

For those reasons, perpetrators of sex crimes also seek out children who tend to be small, quiet and marginalized, said Gail Wyatt, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA who has studied sexual experiences for over 15 years. And often, she said, such children tend to be minorities.

“Race is a factor sometimes in victimization,” Wyatt said. “We just don’t know how much that occurs.”

Little research has been done in the area, Wyatt said, in part because “communities of color generally don’t use the police as a resource. They don’t see them as a help.” Recent or illegal immigrants may also be reluctant to report such crimes to the police, just as those who speak English poorly may be less likely to turn to authorities for help, she said.

Poverty may also play a role in a child’s susceptibility to abuse, adds Star.

“Poverty, in and of itself, creates fewer resources for parents and for families,” Star said. “People who have less education tend to be more susceptible because they don’t train their children to tell them if anything happens.”

Nonetheless, many experts still contend that ethnicity and class play no role in whether a child will fall victim to sexual abuse.

“If you’re looking at the true pedophile, (the victim’s) cultural background will have no impact at all,” said Esther Gillies, executive director of the Antelope Valley Children’s Center.

A child molester’s victims may be similar because pedophiles often possess a vision of the person they desire, much as a man may be attracted to brunettes over blondes, said Dr. Michael J. Durfee, director of the county’s Child Abuse Prevention Program.

Durfee said that pedophiles are usually trying to pick children who fit a model and that often, but not always, the prototype is an attractive, white child. Next, the pedophile looks for children who fit the model and are vulnerable.

That vulnerability may be easier to find in children of families under financial stress--but not always, Durfee warned. “Rich kids can be incredibly unhappy. Poor kids can have everything they want,” he said.

In the case unfolding at Hazeltine Avenue Elementary School, police were notified after a young boy told a playground supervisor that he had been molested by Raker, a popular and widely trusted teacher known for coaching students after school, inviting them to his Studio City home and on weekend trips, even tutoring their parents in math.

Raker, who once taught school in Guatemala and ran a small orphanage there, was arrested a few days later, triggering an uproar among students, parents and faculty who were swept by a collective state of disbelief and rallied behind him.

Parents came forward to act as character references on Raker’s behalf and his students wrote him letters of support. Some of them even began singling out and taunting peers who they believed had made the claims to police, prompting the parents of at least one child to request that he be transferred.

Despite the showing of support, law enforcement authorities and church officials say it is not the first time that Raker has been accused of sexual abuse.

During a Superior Court hearing last month, Deputy Dist. Atty. Phillip Rabichow successfully argued that Raker’s bail be increased from $500,000 to $750,000 because he posed a flight risk.

Rabichow told a judge in Van Nuys that he can produce witnesses who will testify that Raker was jailed for child molestation in Guatemala, where he lived for 16 years before joining the Los Angeles Unified School District in 1992. Rabichow has refused to elaborate. But Episcopal church officials, who subsequently took over the management of Raker’s orphanage, have confirmed that he was imprisoned there.

Raker’s lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Michael Duffey, has failed to return repeated phone messages. But by almost every account, Raker seemed the perfect educator and friend.

He was an elementary school teacher who cared so much about his students that he would go out of his way to take them on extracurricular field trips, coach them in softball and even buy some of them new uniforms.

But authorities have interpreted Raker’s gestures in a darker way and allege that he manipulated the trust he had built among students and parents to his advantage.

“He was like a father figure to these kids,” said Officer Rosibel Ferrufino of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Sexually Exploited Child Unit. “And some of these kids don’t have a father at home.”

Ferrufino said that Raker would ask the boys to have their parents sign permission slips before taking them on weekend camping trips and visits to Knott’s Berry Farm or Disneyland. But according to Los Angeles Unified School District officials, Raker violated school policy by failing to submit the slips to school administrators for their approval.

Under district policy, teachers are required to fill out an application to take students on extracurricular trips and submit it for approval to the school principal, the principal’s direct supervisor and finally, the school board.

“No applications were submitted by (Raker), nor did we have knowledge of his activities,” said Pat Abney, Hazeltine’s principal. “He was going under the auspices of a teacher and was misrepresenting what the district’s procedures were.”

Abney and Ferrufino also agreed that the fact that the alleged victims are all Latino may have contributed to their unquestioning support of Raker and their parents’ high esteem for him.

“Being Hispanic myself,” Ferrufino said, “parents always teach their children that they must obey the teacher and do whatever he says.”

LAPD Detective Bill Dworin, who has worked in the Sexually Exploited Child Unit since its inception nearly two decades ago, said the allegations against Raker fit the troubling pattern of a pedophile who seduced his victims by befriending them and giving them the opportunities and gifts they wouldn’t ordinarily find at home.

“Raker is not unique at all,” Dworin said. “He fits a pattern I’ve been looking at for 18 years.”

Dworin declined to elaborate on what it was about the children’s statements that convinced detectives that Raker had molested the children. But generally speaking, Dworin said, investigators assume that children are telling the truth.

Their allegations are bolstered, Dworin said, if the children are able to provide specific details on how they were molested or are able to describe the interiors of their assailants’ bedrooms.

“We’re very comfortable that these crimes occurred,” Dworin said of the Raker case. “But now we have to prove that to a jury.”

Tamaki is a Times staff writer and Moeser is a special correspondent.