Woman alleges slander

A volunteer in Newport Harbor High School’s culinary arts program has filed a lawsuit against three parents at the school, claiming that they made false statements about her driving under the influence and poorly supervising their children during a pair of school trips last year.

Hennie Sondel, who has volunteered at Newport Harbor High for eight years, filed her claims with Orange County Superior Court in January.

The slander lawsuit alleges that parents Maxine Macha, Lori Hernandez and Denise Harris made false statements about Sondel to school and district officials and demands more than $25,000 in damages.

Sondel, who is not an employee of the Newport-Mesa Unified School District, said she was moved to file her suit after the parents voiced their complaints last spring. The events allegedly took place at the state competition in Napa and the national competition in North Carolina.

“These women accused me of something that was so ludicrous, so untrue,” Sondel said. “I filed a lawsuit because I felt this had to stop.”

Newport Harbor Principal Michael Vossen said his staff had investigated the case and sent its findings to the district. He declined comment on particulars of the case but said Sondel had not lost her status as a culinary volunteer.

“She has not been dismissed or let go,” Vossen said.

Macha, Hernandez and Harris, however, said their claims were justified. The women, each of whom had a son on Newport Harbor’s culinary team last year, said Sondel had driven students several times after drinking wine and that their sons had expressed concerns about her.

“Everything that we said was true,” Harris said. “I can tell you that. There’s nothing fabricated or exaggerated about it.”

Macha said her group had filed complaints with both the district and state regarding the incident. She added that the parents had complained privately to Vossen and that no one had publicly accused Sondel of being under the influence.

“What was said to Michael Vossen is not anything close to what she [Sondel] is stating in her lawsuit against us,” Macha said. “After we went to Michael, we thought it was a done deal, and for some reason, she won’t let it go.”

Sondel said she heard the parents’ allegations against her from students and teachers at the school, and reasoned that they may have heard them from culinary team members and their parents rather than from Vossen.

According to Sondel’s lawsuit, the parents claimed to administrators that she had driven their sons “while under the influence of alcohol.” The parents said they had seen Sondel drinking up to two glasses of wine at a time, but could not say whether she was drunk when she took the wheel.

Sondel told the Daily Pilot she had consumed small amounts of alcohol during the trip when celebrating with parents, but never enough to impair her driving ability.

The case has yet to go to hearing. Sondel’s attorney, Barbara Lichman, praised her client as a dedicated volunteer.

“She gets no salary,” Lichman said. “She gets no benefits. She gets nothing but the satisfaction she receives from working with those children.”