She Could Have Been Me: From Beloved Mentor to Familiar Monster
Edgar was one of my firsts. Decades ago, he became my first boss, first mentor, and first significant male ally. And now, almost exactly 29 years after we met, he just became another first.
Edgar was my first boss, but not my first supervisor. Before him, I had a dozen supervisors at the many part time jobs I held between the ages of 16 and 22, but I don’t consider them “bosses” the way Edgar was. Edgar was 38 years old, a psychologist with a PhD, and Colombian. He had a hearty laugh, pretty hazel eyes, and a long, curly ponytail. I confess I had an occasional crush on him, but he was Director of Program for the nonprofit social services agency where we worked, and he was my boss.
I was the agency’s newest and youngest Area Coordinator, and the only one with an office in our headquarters — just across the hall from Edgar. I was 22 and a newly-minted, magna cum laude UCLA grad when I took the job as a frantic Plan B. Plan A had been to join the new and exciting Teach for America corps as an “inner city” high school teacher, and I thought I was a shoo-in with my smarts, my experience and my kickass live teaching demo. However, I was rejected just weeks before graduation, and found myself with no backup plan and no income safety net. Combing the newspaper classifieds, I saw an ad for the job at Catholic Big Brothers, and quickly applied. Edgar interviewed and hired me, and I started working for “CBB” two days after graduation. Ego bruised by the TFA rejection, I was relieved, energized, and grateful to be on Edgar’s team, ready to make a positive difference in the world.
Edgar was my first real boss. And just a few days ago, I learned that Edgar went to prison for four years.
Edgar was more than my first boss — he was also my first true mentor. My job at CBB was to interview big brother volunteers in my office, interview little brother applicants and their moms in their homes, match them together in pairs, and monitor the relationships. The vast urban area I oversaw included “South Central”, East L.A., Central L.A., and Hollywood. It was the summer of 1992, and the city still smoldered from the uprising sparked when a jury acquitted the four policemen who beat Rodney King.
The big brothers were mostly single white guys with decent jobs and good hearts. The little brothers were mostly Latino and African American youth living in neighborhoods plagued by poverty and gang violence. The kids struggled with educational challenges, a lack of positive male role models and the chronic weariness of their single moms who worked long, punishing hours in the urban L.A. of the 1990s, rife with drugs and immigration raids. Many of those moms didn’t speak English. Many were undocumented. Some had fled the violence in their country of origin, or in their own homes at the hands of their children’s father.
As a new college grad making $22k working for a nonprofit social service agency, I could still afford a one-bedroom apartment in Silver Lake, ten minutes from my office on Temple. I drove all over the city in my copper-colored 1980 Honda Prelude, hunting for the kids’ tiny apartments on dangerous streets and down dubious alleys. In my baggy jeans, combat boots and long, curly hair, I navigated nearly 200 square miles of the second-largest city in the U.S. relying only on Thomas Guide and pay phones — no cell phone, Google Maps or Waze. I didn’t have a computer in my office, or at home — just phones and file cabinets. I took interview notes by hand, and presented my cases verbally in our weekly team meetings — as did the other social workers on my team and in agencies across the city.
Edgar presided over those meetings with professionalism, grace, and appropriately provocative questions. At the time, all of us Area Coordinators were white women, although I was regarded by my coworkers and the families we served as an honorary Latina. As a team, our job was to ensure the kids’ safety from pedophiles by screening out volunteers with red flags. Our mission was to support the success of the matches, and improve the kids’ chance of success in life.
I learned a lot about social work, psychotherapy, justice and human relationships by watching Edgar in action and observing his thought process. I appreciated the way he listened to our feedback, accepted my challenges in private, and sometimes changed his mind. Between the two of us, we elevated the agency’s work in the Latino community by appearing together on Spanish-language TV and radio. We often took two of my “little brothers” — Diego & Rafael*, brothers in real life — along as poster children for our program’s success. Their “big brother” eventually attained success in Hollywood as a film producer, and today their families are intertwined across generations. The brothers are now in their late 30s, and I’m still close with their extended family — in fact, I attended Diego’s wedding in Oaxaca two years ago, and last month I cooed over photos of his newborn daughter.
Edgar was my first mentor. And just days ago, Diego’s mother called to let me know that Edgar — the man in charge of ensuring CBB’s kids and families stayed safe from sexual predation — went to prison last year for being a sexual predator.
Edgar was even more than my first boss and mentor. He was my first male ally — a big brother to me in his own right. He once disclosed that I’d been selected for the Area Coordinator job over Latino applicants because, even as a gringa, both my Spanish and my cultural awareness were more fluent than that of the other applicants. We both relished our one-on-one supervisory meetings. We were both thoughtful, funny, and loved to dance. Years later, my former coworkers still recalled how there was always something special about the relationship between me and Edgar.
It was from Edgar that I adopted my current practice of drawing accent marks top-down instead of bottom-up when writing Spanish by hand. It was me who encouraged Edgar to start pronouncing his name correctly, as “vee-yah-mah-REEN” instead of the anglicized “vil-lah-MARE-in”. We both got a kick out of the fact that when we disagreed about the spelling of a Spanish word, or where the accent fell, I was usually right. We often “got” each other better than the other social workers got us — individually or collectively. I was already regularly passing for Latina, and he was a safe place to be all of my selves, and explore my increasingly ambiguous and fluid identity with curiosity and integrity.
More than once, Edgar defended or protected me from two occasionally toxic coworkers. He frequently said how much he admired me. He continued to express this admiration for many years after I left the agency in 1994, and we remained friends, correspondents, and mutual professional references. I visited him in his home, watched his daughter grow up, and got to know three of his siblings. When I began developing my identity as a journalist, I interviewed one of Edgar’s brothers for a piece I wrote for a local magazine about immigrants. In my mid-thirties, Edgar jokingly told me to tell my new boyfriend Alex that if he didn’t treat me right, Edgar would send “the Colombian mafia” after him. Edgar’s expressions of admiration sometimes bordered on uncomfortably excessive, even fawning. But I figured he was one of my greatest fans, and I was grateful.
Now I remember his admiration differently. Just days ago, I learned Edgar went to state prison last fall — for four years — for sexually assaulting seven female patients.
I don’t know if Edgar was grooming me with his flattery. I don’t know if his mind was steeped in marianismo, causing him to see women as either virgins or whores — me as Virgen to be venerated and protected, and his victims as putas undeserving of respect or agency. I don’t know if his heart was poisoned by machismo — plagued with insecurity about his short stature and feminine voice that compelled him to assert his masculinity through violence.
What I do know is that the only thing that surprised me about the news was that I wasn’t entirely surprised.
When the mask comes off a cherished loved one and we see them for who they really are, history rearranges itself, forwards and backwards. It’s like time travel. Stories we told ourselves are rewritten. Big things take on new meaning. Little things make more sense.
Edgar never tried anything inappropriate with me, but there was always a certain sexual tension between us. I recall going out salsa dancing with him one evening after I no longer worked at CBB. It was fun, but also a bit awkward. I remember feeling an urge to maintain my distance. I vaguely remember him chiding me for not wanting to dance more that night, and later for not wanting to go out dancing with him again. Now I realize he wasn’t teasing.
I vividly remember a conversation we had four years after I left CBB. In the summer of 1995, I’d moved to Sacramento to be with my boyfriend, José, who was pursuing a PhD at UC Davis. Around Thanksgiving the following year, I discovered José had cheated on me, so I ended our relationship and kicked him out of our apartment. After the drama subsided, I came down to L.A. to lick my wounds and seek comfort from friends and family.
During that trip, I visited my beloved mentor and “big brother” at CBB, where we greeted each other warmly. Edgar and I sat down to catch up in the same conference room where we used to review our cases. I talked about my work teaching high school Spanish and publishing articles as a freelance journalist, and shared the painful news of José’s infidelity and our breakup.
In response, Edgar announced with flair that he was now divorced! He kissed my hand suddenly while making this announcement with a triumphant air. I was startled by his actions and the news — I liked his wife and I’d seen no sign of marital problems. Edgar’s triumph soon turned to disgust and vitriol as he explained. Apparently, she’d bided her time in filing for divorce, waiting until they’d been together long enough that he was legally obligated to pay alimony. Oh sure, he’d cheated on her, but that was because she’d neglected him. In Edgar’s mind, her crime was clearly far worse.
Even with the poorer boundaries, less healthy relationships with men, and lower self-esteem I had at 27, I knew that conversation wasn’t right. My beloved boss was a cheater. My dear mentor blamed his wife for his infidelity. My cherished ally was enraged that she dared to plot against him. My big brother had just responded to my pain over my sweetheart’s infidelity with a story about his infidelity. A person I trusted just showed tremendous insensitivity, irresponsibility, and self-righteousness.
That conversation always stuck with me. Now I know why.
That moment haunted me because it was my first glimpse of the real Edgar, revealed right after I’d been betrayed by another man. It was the moment I began to lose trust in someone I respected. It was one of the first times I believed my own perceptions over a man’s declarations about who he is. It was one of the first times I allowed myself to see who someone was, instead of who I thought they were, or who they should be.
Edgar was a first for me, in so many ways.
In September 2020, Edgar was found guilty of seven counts of “sexual battery with fraud”. Over four years, he had sexually fondled seven women in his office during private therapy sessions. He deceived them into thinking he was providing therapeutic massages to help them relax, then, gradually over time, escalated these massages to intimate touching. The first complaint was filed in 2018, which prompted police to arrest Edgar and revisit a similar case from 2016. (Thank you, #metoo.) Police issued a call to the community on TV to ask any other victims to come forth, and five more did. (Thank you, #metoo!) Five additional charges, including “false imprisonment by violence”, “assault with intent to commit a sex crime”, “sexual battery by restraint” and “sexual penetration of an unconscious person”, were dismissed.
Reeling, I shared the news with two friends who’d been my coworkers at CBB. The following day, one of them went into full internet detective mode, and we learned even more than the press releases revealed. Most significantly, decades earlier, Edgar’s therapist license had been revoked, then suspended for 90 days with five years of probation. The cause was a complaint filed by a female patient about an incident in March 1988, in which Edgar had perpetrated the same manipulative massaging and fondling that would send him to prison 32 years later.
A judge found for the complainant and Edgar’s therapist license was suspended in fall of 1993. I froze when I read the date. I worked for him in 1993! He was conducting private therapy sessions in 1993! Catholic Big Brothers employed him to root out sexual predators and oversee their entire caseload in 1993! Either the agency leadership wasn’t monitoring their Director of Program as closely as they monitored their volunteers and social workers, or they knew about the suspension and turned a blind eye.
My stomach turned as the gravity of the situation sank in. Edgar had been a sexual predator for over 30 years. Edgar was a sexual predator while he was my boss. While Edgar and I talked about justice and making a positive difference for the community, he was abusing and betraying single, marginalized Latina single moms — for three decades. Surely there were far more than eight victims.
I thought about his victim, “MV”, from 1988. She could have been me.
I don’t know what it was like for Edgar to keep such a hideous secret for so long. I don’t know how any person lives with such duplicity and lack of integrity — how they justify such a desperately incongruent life. Perhaps Edgar justified his behavior as gleefully as he justified cheating on his wife — because (certain?) women exist to fulfill his needs, regardless of theirs.
What I do know is that Edgar lied every day he came to work for CBB. He lied to me, every day that I knew him. What I do know is that my team and I fed him victims — the vulnerable, single Latina moms in our program. What I do know is that Edgar made me an accomplice of his crimes. I helped a predator gain fame, fortune and adoration from thousands of fans over the next few decades. Edgar went on to earn good money, publish a book and become a frequent figure on Los Angeles media as an expert in forensic psychology and as an inspiring marriage-and-family therapist to the Latino community.
What I also know is that his vegetarianism, Buddhism and performative goodness couldn’t wash away the stain of his transgressions. He was a dirty hypocrite, dispensing advice to others while he was unable to be faithful, nurture a marriage, find a new partner, or respect the sanctity of the therapist’s office.
I also know now why he suddenly withdrew his RSVP to Diego’s Oaxaca wedding in May 2019. He’d recently been barred from any activity which would require a marriage and family therapist license, and was probably out of work. He’d posted $450,000 bail. He was probably barred from leaving the country.
Edgar will never be a therapist again. He will never again appear on television as a forensic psychologist, a relationship and family therapy expert, or an advocate for immigrants. When he’s released from prison at age 70, he will be a registered sex offender for the rest of his life.
I remember the last time I saw my once-beloved boss, mentor and ally. When I moved back home to L.A. in 2016, I reached out to Edgar to get together, but his response was lukewarm. I found this odd. Our eventual plan to get together for lunch months later fell through due to trouble with my Jeep. I sensed a weird vibe from Edgar about my cancellation, and he never followed up. I didn’t either.
I saw Edgar a couple years later, on a weekday afternoon. I’d parked my Jeep on Delacey Street in Pasadena, and was walking up the block to my hair appointment when I thought I spotted him a few yards away, walking towards me. He was on his cell phone, and I didn’t fully realize it was him until he passed. If he saw or recognized me, he gave no sign. Something in me hesitated before calling out to him, and I proceeded to the salon, letting the moment pass.
I now know from the media coverage that we crossed paths just one block from his office. It was 2018 or 2019. I wonder now if he’d just seen a patient. I wonder if he’d just assaulted her.
She could have been me.
I don’t know how many women Edgar abused and betrayed. I don’t know how many women he made doubt their feelings, perceptions, boundaries, or worth. How many women he made think they were crazy, or deserving of mistreatment. I don’t know how many women silenced their inner alarm bells because “El Doctor” must surely know better than them what they needed to heal. How many women he made feel isolated and alone, questioning how “El Doctor” could be behaving this way, and what they must have done to provoke him. I don’t know how many women Edgar made more vulnerable to abuse from other men — women who then unknowingly taught their daughters not to listen to themselves, or taught their sons not to listen to women.
I do know I will not be silent. I will not collude any further by protecting Edgar. These are his consequences. His case is public record, and this is my story.
To my surprise, I also know I don’t feel bad for Edgar. A younger version of me would have felt pity or great compassion for him, but 51-year-old me doesn’t. Edgar’s lying and duplicity also made me one of his victims. He betrayed me, too. He no longer deserves my respect, loyalty or protection.
This is the legacy of abuse and sexual terrorism. While Edgar was my first in so many ways, he wasn’t the first man to abuse or betray me. My second boss, at the public housing projects where I worked after CBB, was fired for sexual inappropriateness with a female resident. My boyfriend José had cheated on me during an extended trip home to El Salvador with my money, my camera, and my blessing. He gave me an STD when he returned. A dear male friend, Mark, who empathetically expressed that “men can be brutes” after I shared my José ordeal, later tried to cheat on his fiancée with me — when I was also in another relationship.
The boyfriend who Edgar had jokingly warned about “the Colombian mafia” used that statement against me in court when I filed a restraining order. I filed the restraining order against Alex when he stalked me for nearly a year after we broke up. I’d dumped him when I discovered that his “roommate” was actually his long-term girlfriend, his massage therapist license had been revoked due to inappropriate touching of female clients, and his brain cancer diagnosis was brilliantly fake. The insane hell of Alex’s world is the closest I’ve come to pure evil.
She could have been me because she has been me.
Edgar wasn’t the first man to abuse or betray me, and he likely won’t be the last. There may also be dozens of men in my past and present who’ve been abusers and predators, and I’ll never know. In times like this, I’m tempted to throw up my hands and exclaim: “Well damn! Who can you trust?!” But 51-year-old me knows the answer: me.
I resent the fact that no one prepared a younger me to navigate a world full of hungry wolves. But now, along with my healed scars, I have my own sensitive nostrils, attuned ears, long teeth, and sharp claws. I dream of a day when we don’t need to teach our daughters to be as fierce as they are kind. But that day is not today.
Our individual actions create ripples in the ocean. Edgar’s individual assaults created far more damage than that which he caused to those eight-plus individual lives. He harmed those women’s children and partners. He harmed the Latino community and public perceptions of Latino men. He damaged people’s trust in therapists and social service programs. He harmed everyone who has heard his story and will read this article.
But the eight-plus women who came forth also created ripples beyond their individual lives. It’s thanks to their courage that all of Edgar’s victims now know they are not alone — that they are not bad or crazy. It’s due to their strength that I — and thousands of others — now know the truth. We can now make truer sense of our experience, and receive validation for our perceptions. We can grow, heal and become wiser. We can be reminded as women that we can trust ourselves, even — and especially — when the people we most trust and respect betray us.
I may be victimized again, but I will never again be a victim. She could have been me, but I will not be her, ever again.
** Not their real names.
