Public defender asks judge to stall Gregor records
The Public Defender’s Office in Santa Fe is asking a state judge to order the Attorney General’s Office to delay the release of public records about Gary Gregor, a former teacher accused of sexually assaulting schoolchildren, contending the information could sway jurors ahead of the man’s trials.
The first trial for Gregor, 62, is scheduled to start early next month.
He is charged with multiple felonies in three cases alleging he raped and molested young girls in Santa Fe and Española schools between 200309. If convicted on all counts, he faces up to 165 years in prison.
Public Defender Shelby Bradley filed a motion Tuesday asking the state District Court in Santa Fe to halt the release of records in the case that The New
Mexican had requested Oct. 11 under the state Inspection of Public Records Act. The documents could shed light on officials’ decision-making about the case between 2009 — when one girl’s parents reported allegations to Española police — and 2017, when Attorney General Hector Balderas began to pursue criminal charges.
District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer said Thursday she hadn’t seen the documents and therefore couldn’t decide whether releasing them would affect Gregor’s right to a fair trial.
She postponed a ruling on the motion and directed Balderas’ office to compile
the records and provide them to Bradley and the court Nov. 13.
The Attorney General’s Office previously had indicated the records would be made available to the The New Mexican on Nov. 10.
Gregor had been accused of misconduct in two other states before he came to New Mexico and took a job with Santa Fe Public Schools. Following a class field trip to a local museum in 2004, docents reported inappropriate behavior between Gregor and some students to the principal of what was then Agua Fría Elementary School.
But school officials 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. Gregor then took a teaching job with Española Public Schools, where he is accused of molesting multiple students.
Marlowe Sommer said she’ll ask Judge Sarah Singleton to review the documents and hold a hearing on them next week — when Marlowe Sommer will be busy with a trial — in an effort to lessen the delay of their release if the motion is rejected.
“I’m concerned that I’m involving myself in something I should not be involving myself in, and that’s getting in the way of a free press because of this trial,” Marlowe Sommer said during the Thursday hearing. “That’s not the way I want to do that.”
It might be more appropriate, she said, for Bradley to make arguments about individual documents and their potential to harm his client rather than for the court to issue a blanket order preventing the Attorney General’s Office from complying with the records request.
The charges against Gregor were filed in 2017, eight years after parents in Española reported him to police and three years after civil attorney Carolyn “Cammie” Nicholsbegan suing the Española school district on behalf of girls who had accused Gregor of abuse.
Nichols has since reached three settlements in civil cases against Española Public Schools worth a combined total of $9.1 million, a figure likely to grow when the school district settles with three other plaintiffs whose claims about Gregor are pending.
Nichols has said she filed the civil cases after being approached by parents who said their reports about Gregor to law enforcement had fallen on deaf ears.
The District Attorney’s Office and the Attorney General’s Office both were aware of complaints against Gregor for years before Balderas’ office decided to pursue charges against him. The first round of charges came a few weeks after one of the girls alleging abuse appeared on 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.
In his motion on the records request, Bradley argues it will lead to the publication of sensitive information about Gregor’s conduct that would “irreversibly bias potential jurors” against him at trial.
The attorney acknowledged Thursday that he wasn’t aware when he wrote his motion which specific documents the newspaper sought or which records would be produced in response to the request.
District Defender Morgan Wood, who heads the Public Defender’s Office in Santa Fe, declined to comment on the issue.
Prosecutor Brianne A. Bigej with the Attorney General’s Office told the judge the agency has not taken a position on the motion but intends to produce the records if the motion is not granted.