Gary Gregor, who was sentenced in May to 108 years in prison for sexually abusing two fourth grade students in Española a decade ago, is on trial on similar criminal charges involving a second grader from the same school. New Mexican file photo
Gary Gregor, who was sentenced in May to 108 years in prison for sexually abusing two fourth grade students in Española a decade ago, is on trial on similar criminal charges involving a second grader from the same school. New Mexican file photo
A former student told a Santa Fe jury about the times she said second grade teacher Gary Gregor asked her to lay on the carpet as he rubbed his groin across her body.
“He would tell me we should take a nap,” the woman, now 21, testified Thursday in the retrial of the former teacher.
The New Mexican does not identify victims of sexual assault.
The woman described how Gregor, a former teacher for Española and Santa Fe school districts, would lay behind her and rub his genitals on her buttocks while other children were at recess, she said.
Gregor is being retried on one count of molesting a second grader more than a decade ago at Fairview Elementary School in Española. A trial in January ended in a hung jury.
The woman described how Gregor made her “class president” with special privileges and gave her a seat in a chair with wheels next to his desk. She also described how he would ask her to stay in for recess to help grade papers, place his hand on her thigh as she sat next to him and would buy her gifts like teddy bears, an MP3 player and a bicycle, she said.
Her voice cracked when she talked about the trust she had in Gregor.
Gregor, 63, was convicted of a dozen counts of criminal sexual penetration, criminal sexual contact and other charges in December after a jury found he raped and sexually assaulted two girls in his fourth grade class at Fairview Elementary School during the 2007-08 school year.
State District Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer sentenced Gregor to 108 years in prison in May.
Assistant Attorney General Brittany DuChaussee said in opening arguments that the case was about the trust Gregor built with the then-7-year-old girl and her family, then manipulated it.
“This [case] is about the process and the extent someone will go to gain trust, and then using that trust and violating it,” she said.
Gregor’s attorney, Shelby Bradley, raised questions about the timing of the allegations, noting that the girl came forward a decade after she says the incident happened, and told a civil attorney, not police. He asked the jury to consider that no one else witnessed the alleged criminal behavior except the woman.
Bradley questioned the woman about $2.3 million she received in a settlement for a lawsuit against the Española district and Gregor. She was one of three women the New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority paid an $11 million settlement following dismissal of their lawsuit against Española Public Schools, Gregor and then-Principal Ruby Montoya.
In a series of previous settlements, Española Public Schools agreed in 2018 to pay nearly $10 million to women who filed lawsuits against that district.
In January, Gregor is scheduled for another trial on separate child rape charges brought by two former students in Santa Fe. He is accused of sexually abusing them in 2003-04 at Agua Fría Elementary School.
Gregor was a teacher in Utah and Montana before he began teaching in Santa Fe in 2001. He was accused of inappropriate behavior with underage girls in both states, but was not criminally charged, according to prosecutors. He was accused of inappropriately touching girls on a museum field trip but after he agreed to resign, no one reported him to police.
Española Public Schools hired him in 2005.
A girl’s parent reported Gregor to police in 2009 in Española but he was not charged.
In a 2011 letter, a New Mexico law firm told the Attorney General’s Office that Gregor was a predator and should be prosecuted. The Attorney General’s Office brought charges six years later.
