RESEDA MOM LINKED TO PRISON GANG; TEACHER ACCUSED OF CARRYING MESSAGES.

Byline: Jesse Hiestand, Lisa Van Proyen and Greg Gittrich Staff Writers

An LAUSD teacher was among seven people arrested Thursday on suspicion of helping the ruthless Mexican Mafia prison gang expand its control of drug dealing in Los Angeles, officials said.

Margaret Cheryl Farrell, 50, a social studies teacher at a South Central Los Angeles campus, is accused of delivering messages to imprisoned members of the gang known as La Eme or the Mexican Mafia.

She was arrested at her Reseda home as part of a 2-1/2-year investigation of the Mexican Mafia. Two grand jury indictments charge Farrell and 15 suspected gang members and associates with racketeering, murder, conspiracy to commit murder and drug trafficking.

``I'm shocked,'' said Howard Lappin, principal of Foshay Learning Center, where Farrell taught social studies and English as a second language to seventh- and eighth-graders since 1986.

However, Farrell told Lappin she had kept in touch with former students who were in prison because she wanted to help them, he said.

``She came to me and said she did keep in contact with people in prison. She talked with me about it and said that she doesn't do anything wrong,'' he said.

``Margaret Farrell is the last person in the world I would think would do anything to hurt anybody. If there was an ant on the floor, Margaret Farrell would walk around it,'' Lappin said.

Federal agents paint a different picture of Farrell, who they say was among five women arrested on suspicion of delivering messages to gang members.

``In order for them to succeed, they need helpers, and the helpers become part of the conspiracy even though they may never have picked up a gun or a drug or bumped someone off,'' said John Schiman, acting assistant direct in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles field office.

``This will really have a major impact on their operations in the L.A. area,'' Schiman said.

Farrell's tie to the gang was unclear, Schiman said. But she is accused in the indictment of acting as a messenger for the gang on six occasions over two months beginning May 15, 1998.

She is accused of disseminating the names of three people the gang planned to attack in state prison. The indictment also says she received instructions ``to do some things'' that were ``complicated'' on behalf of an incarcerated Mexican Mafia member, according to the indictment.

Farrell and six others are expected to be arraigned Tuesday.

Two other defendants are now in state prison and seven others remain fugitives, according to U.S. Attorney spokesman Thom Mrozek.

The new indictments allege six murders, four attempted murders and 14 conspiracies to commit murders. Federal prosecutors also accuse the gang of expanding its drug dealing operations by forcing Latino street gangs and drug dealers to pay a tax in exchange for protection in prisons and neighborhoods.

In addition to Farrell, those arrested Thursday are Javier Alvidrez Duarte, 29, of West Covina; Gerardo Jacobo, 18, of Los Angeles; Adrian Miguel Nieto, 23, of Pico Rivera; Sally Peters, 45, of Santa Ana; Suzanne Schoenberg, 26, of Paramount; and Veronica Ruiz Rodriguez, 25, of Los Angeles.

Schiman said agents did not know Farrell was a teacher until her arrest, but ``her activities had nothing to do with the school.''

Federal authorities did not inform the LAUSD of the probe, said Shel Erlich, a district spokesman.

She began working for the district as a full-time teacher in 1983 at Markham Middle School in Los Angeles.

Lappin said Farrell is married and has a teen-age son, and she consistently received ``good evaluations.''

Staff Writers Douglas Haberman and David Baker contributed to this story.

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PHOTO Margaret Cheryl Farrell

Teaches in South Central