ALTADENA, Calif. — A high school teacher asked three students for a ride, then abducted them at knifepoint and ordered them to take him to a fast food restaurant, Los Angeles County sheriff’s detectives said Monday.
John Edward Maust, 34, a teacher at Arroyo Pacific Academy in Arcadia was standing on the sidewalk around 9:30 p.m. Saturday night when three 17-year-old male students from the academy stopped to say hello.
As the teacher walked toward them, he appeared to be intoxicated, the students told investigators.
When Maust asked for a ride, the students said yes and he got in the car.
Something Maust said in the car caused the driver to pull over and the students to jump out, but Maust ordered them back, pulled a knife and told them to take him to a Jack-in-the-Box restaurant.
One of the students was able to call 911 as they drove, deputies said.
When Maust saw a sheriff’s department helicopter, he got out of the car and fled, deputies said. None of the students were hurt.
On Sunday, around 1:30 p.m., Maust walked into the department’s Altadena station and surrendered without incident. He was booked at the Crescenta Valley Station for investigation of kidnapping, false imprisonment, and criminal threats. He was being held on $100,000 bail.
Arroyo Pacific Academy President Philip Clarke says the school contacted Maust and told him he is on indefinite leave.
Clarke says the school will have no comment. He adds that Maust has been a long-term, well-respected member of the faculty so the staff’s hearts and prayers go out to him and his family.
Clarke has been at the 130-student private school in Arcadia for 10 years. He teaches social studies and physical education.
Emails were sent to the president, vice presidents and principal at Arroyo Pacific in an attempt to locate an attorney for Maust, but none of them responded early Monday. A message was also left for the detective who wrote the news release, but he was in the field. Jail records do not have an attorney listed for Maust.
The school’s website calls him an instructor. It does not say what he teaches or how long he has been there.