While at Mission Viejo Christian School, George Gay Knew of Suspicious Messages, School Officials Say.
By Amanda Glowish
Orange County Register
January 16, 2008
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/homepage/article_1961520.php
MISSION VIEJO – The former principal of Mission Viejo Christian School knew of an improper relationship his son-in-law, Armando Lucero – then 25 – was having with a 15-year-old student and did not report it to school and law-enforcement officials, according to an executive pastor at the school.
Nearly two years later, George Gay, the 51-year-old educator who has since founded Heritage Christian School in Mission Viejo, oversees 100 students and about 15 faculty members – a role that some people feel he shouldn't be allowed to have.
"It's a privilege working with children," said Darrin Smith, executive pastor of Mission Viejo Christian Church. "Once you allow exploitation of one child, you don't get that right anymore."
Supporters consider Gay a devoted principal.
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| PRINCIPAL: Principal George Gay in the kindergarden area at Heritage Christian School in Mission Viejo. Photo by Marilynn Young |
Gay, in an e-mail, said in October that the allegations "serve no useful purpose."
"God is faithful, and we have had a great first trimester," he wrote a month later.
Lucero, now 27, pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Orange County Superior Court Judge Kelly W. MacEachern on Oct. 3 to a year in jail for sexually assaulting the student, as well as lesser charges involving inappropriate behavior with two other underage girls. He began serving his sentence Oct. 12.
NO BACKGROUND CHECK
In 2003 Gay hired his son-in-law Lucero, who had a high school education, as the middle school physical education director at what was then the Lake Forest campus of Mission Viejo Christian. Lucero was never given a background check, according to Jim Grandy, a lawyer for the school.
"He (Gay) helped start the school and was given free rein over who he hired and who he fired," Grandy added.
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| SENTENCED:Armando Lucero, a former athletic director at Mission Viejo Christian School, was sentenced to one year in county jail and five years probation for six felonies and two misdemeanors, including unlawful sex with a minor, last October in Superior Court in Newport Beach. Photo by Mark Rightmire |
Ted Ehrheart, a junior high science teacher, was approached by a friend of the victim in April 2005 at a Saturday yearbook class. The friend told the teacher that Lucero and the victim had crushes on each other and they were sending text messages to each other, according Ehrheart.
Ehrheart said he feared the relationship might become sexual. Immediately after the class he called Vice Principal Jim Downey to report what the victim's friend said. Downey and Ehrheart then called Gay to notify him of the incident. Downey and Gay had a meeting with Lucero that afternoon, according to Ehrheart.
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| SEX OFFENDER:Armando Lucero, a former athletic director at Mission Viejo Christian School, was sentenced to one year in county jail and five years probation for six felonies and two misdemeanors, including unlawful sex with a minor, last October in Superior Court in Newport Beach. Photo by Mark Rightmire |
Ehrheart documented the conversation with the student in a three-page typed letter addressed to Downey. The letter, dated April 16, 2005, indicated that the victim and Lucero were looking for ways to be alone and quoted explicit text messages — as relayed by the victim's friend — from Lucero to the victim. The messages, as stated in the letter, included phrases such as, "I think you are totally hot," "I want to be with you," and "I love touching you." The friend told Ehrheart she wasn't sure if the relationship was sexual, the letter said.
"Much of it was written in the future tense and seemed to be the beginning of what ultimately happened," Grandy said. According to court files, the sexual contacts occurred from April 2005 to June 2006.
Ehrheart said he provided a copy of the letter to Gay and Downey the following Monday. According to Ehrheart, Gay told him and Downey he was handing over the letter to Pastor Smith and a senior pastor so they could make a decision about Lucero's future at the school. Smith said he didn't get the letter.
Gay apparently thought he could take care of the problem by separating Lucero from the student, Smith and Ehrheart said.
Gay, Smith said, within a week moved Lucero to Mission Viejo Christian School's elementary school campus in Mission Viejo, keeping him on staff until his contract expired in June 2005. Ehrheart said Gay told him it was the pastors' decision to move Lucero. Gay told Smith he wanted he wanted to keep an eye on Lucero.
Ehrheart said Gay told him that he called the victim's mother to make her aware of the incident and told her about the letter.
"We believed George was doing what he said he was doing," said Ehrheart. "We thought the pastors were in control and that the mother was involved; it was all out in the open. We thought we were OK."
The victim's mother said, in an interview, she was contacted by Gay who told her Lucero and her daughter were texting each other about a boy the girl liked but it was "teenager stuff" and "nothing major."
The mother said she questioned her daughter about the incident and her story matched up with Gay's.
Gay never told her about the letter, according to the victim's mother.
The Register is withholding the names of the mother and the victim to protect the teen's identity.
"There were a couple weeks in between the letter coming out and when things started happening," said the mother, whose daughter later told her the first sexual encounter with Lucero was at the end of April. "No one told me anything because George told everyone he already told me."
Gay never notified authorities or other school officials about the inappropriate relationship, Grandy said.
Ehrheart said because he felt the relationship had not become sexual and that he had reported what he knew to Gay, he did not have to alert authorities.
"It was just flirtation," Ehrheart said. "I did not think it met the elements of a crime to contact child protective services."
Rather than return Lucero to the high school campus in Lake Forest, Gay rehired Lucero as a volleyball coach at the elementary school campus in Mission Viejo in January 2006. The team never materialized because not enough children signed up, and Lucero was let go shortly after, according to Grandy.
IT ALL COMES OUT
In late June 2006, Ehrheart was told by two students that the victim and Lucero each had hickeys on their necks. Fearing the worst, Ehrheart tracked down the victim's mother and said, "Mando's on the prowl again."
Based on what Gay had told her, the victim's mother said, she had no idea how serious the situation had become. Ehrheart gave a copy of the letter to the mother and encouraged her to question her daughter, which the mother did.
Within days the victim called Ehrheart and told him about the more than year-long relationship she was having with Lucero. The mother said she and her daughter reported the incident to police on July 10, 2006.
After talking to the victim Ehrheart told Gay the victim and Lucero had sex. Ehrheart said Gay broke down. At the time Lucero's wife – Gay's daughter – was having complications with her pregnancy, according to Ehrheart.
"He was terribly upset," Ehrheart said. "He meant everything to me and he looked like he couldn't handle it anymore."
Ehrheart said he went to the two pastors to ask them to offer Gay counseling. "Mando's on the prowl again," he said he told them.
The pastors had the same reaction as the victim's mother; they knew nothing, said Ehrheart. The teacher provided a copy of the letter to the administrators, who in turn asked Gay if he had ever seen it. Gay admitted to seeing the letter and said it should be in Lucero's file, according to Pastor Smith. No documentation was found in the file.
"Any adult with any heart at all that would see this would do something," Smith said. "I was so sickened I wanted to take Lucero out back. It was disgusting."
Lucero was arrested on July 17, 2006.
Smith, the senior pastor of the church and its elders asked Gay to resign from the school in August 2006 because they believed Gay failed to report the information and put one of their students in jeopardy, said Smith.
Phone calls to Gay were not immediately returned to the Register. Gay would not answer specific questions about the incidents but said this in the October e-mail:
"It is unfortunate that there have been, and continue to be, detractors that desire to engage in discussions that sidetrack us from doing God's work in this ministry. We believe these discussions serve no useful purpose; rather they distract us from doing the work that God has called us to do. Therefore, we choose not to engage in them. We desire to glorify God, with a school that emphasizes Christ-centered teaching, academic excellence and Christian service-all in a loving and nurturing environment…"
The school and the victim's family agreed on a settlement through mediation, Grandy said.
The victim's mother said she tried unsuccessfully to have Gay prosecuted and to hire an attorney to represent her.
"For me this has been a wakeup call to families who put our children in this environment that we trust more than a public school," said the mother about private schools. "You have more faith and trust that your kids will be safe there."
REPORTING LAWS
The state has reporting laws that require people in authority, including teachers and social workers, to report suspected child abuse. The penalty for not reporting a suspected incident is up to six months in jail or a fine of $1,000 or both.
The majority of the child abuse reporting law is in the penal code, but portions of it are also in the welfare and institutions code, as well as the education code, according to Rebecca Freie, a staff attorney for the California Department of Education in Sacramento who focused on child abuse cases for 12 years.
"A principal is a mandated reporter," Freie said. "It doesn't matter if it's a public or private school."
If a 25-year-old man were texting a 15-year-old with messages such as "I want to be with you," said Freie, "that's very suspicious."
The District Attorney's Office never received a police report to investigate Gay. The office did get a phone call in January 2007 saying Gay violated child reporting laws, and the caller was referred to the Sheriff's Department, according to Susan Schroeder of the Orange County District Attorney's Office. No police reports have been filed against Gay, a sheriff's spokesman said.
The call apparently was from the victim's mother, who said she called the district attorney's and sheriff's offices several times between September 2006 and July 2007. She specifically recalled phoning in January 2007 to tell authorities about Gay's alleged failure to report the sexual abuse. In one of the last calls she made around May, a sheriff's investigator told her the statute of limitations had passed.
"I know it's not the biggest fish out there but for me it is," the victim's mother said. "This whole thing turned my life upside down."
The District Attorney's Office did obtain text messages that were sent between Lucero and the victim. "We have evidence that text messages were sent to the victim from Lucero and he (Lucero) admitted it in court," Schroeder said.
After Lucero's arrest, church officials felt it was unnecessary to file a report against Gay.
"They were more concerned with what they had to do to protect the kids and the school from this point forward," said Grandy. "And that was by removing George."
John Nagle is the senior pastor at Mission Hills Church, where Gay leases property for Heritage Christian. The pastor talked with Gay's former employer prior to entering into the partnership. He concluded that there are two sides to the story and believes that Gay is a good educator and has the best interest of children in mind.
"George and his family seem to be in the unfortunate situation of being related to a convicted sex offender and they have to bear the brunt of that," Nagle said. "That doesn't mean that he's a bad educator."
Contact the writer: saddlebackvalleynews@ocregister.com
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