Trial for accused child molester Gregor begins
Trial is scheduled to start Tuesday in one of four criminal cases pending against former public school teacher and accused child molester Gary F. Gregor.
Gregor, 62, who worked as a teacher in schools in Santa Fe and Rio Arriba County between 2001 and 2008, is accused of molesting students in both districts.
Gregor’s public defenders and prosecutors from the state Attorney General’s office spent Monday in Tierra Amarilla picking jurors from a panel of Rio Arriba County residents to hear evidence in the first case, which stems from accusations that he raped and molested two students in his fourth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School during the 2007-08 school year.
The trial is set to begin at 9 a.m. in front of state District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer in Santa Fe on three counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, five counts of kidnapping, and five counts of criminal contact with a minor.
Three other criminal cases — two regarding accusations leveled against him by Rio Arriba County accusers and one involving a Santa Fe accuser — are pending in state District Court in
Santa Fe.
Española schools have already paid out more than $9 million to settle civil suits brought by Rio Arriba County accusers, and more civil claims are still pending.
Documents in civil cases filed against Gregor indicate he was accused of inappropriate contact with students in Utah and Montana before he came to New Mexico and that community members in Santa Fe and Española raised red flags about Gregor’s behavior for years — even reporting him to police in 2009 — before state Attorney General Hector Balderas’ office decided to pursue criminal charges in 2017.
Following a class field trip to a local museum in 2004, docents reported inappropriate behavior between Gregor and some students to Vickie L. Sewing, principal of what was then Agua Fría Elementary School.
But Sewing did not report those concerns to law enforcement. Instead, Gregor agreed to resign without a formal hearing and school officials agreed to provide a neutral recommendation to any future employer, clearing the way for Gregor to begin teaching in Española Public Schools, where he is accused of molesting multiple students.
Parents of 0ne of Gregor’s students reported him to Española Police Department in 2009, according to court records. But then District Attorney Angela “Spence” Pacheco’s office declined to the prosecute the case.
Attorney Carolyn “Cammie”
Nichols, who filed her first civil complaint against Gregor in 2014, said she started filing civil cases against Gregor after being approached by parents who said their reports about Gregor to law enforcement had fallen on deaf ears.
According to court records Rothstein, Donatelli, Hughes, Dahlstrom, Schoenburg & Bienvenu law firm sent the Attorney General’s office a letter in 2011 advising the agency that Gregor was a predator who should be prosecuted to protect the community.
But the first round of criminal charges wasn’t filed until 2017, a few weeks after one of the girls alleging abuse appeared on the network TV show Nightline as part of a segment called “Passing the Trash” about schools that keep quiet about misconduct by teachers and unload them on other districts.