HollisterFreelance.com | Former GHS teacher pleads no contest to sex charges

Former GHS teacher pleads no contest to sex charges

May 5, 2009





		Alberto Gomez Vicuna Jr., 32

The Gilroy High School math teacher charged with nine counts of sex crimes with a girl half his age pleaded no contest and faces up to 10 years in prison.

The charges against Morgan Hill resident Alberto Gomez Vicuna Jr., 32, stem from an alleged sexual encounter with a 14-year-old San Jose girl during the early morning hours of Feb. 19.

The victim, who is not a Gilroy High School student, met Vicuna online three weeks before the incident when he "friended" her on an Internet social networking site, Tagged.com, according to police reports. Vicuna was posing on the site as a 15-year-old named Juan G. Police said his profile claimed 120 friends, all but one or two of whom were females between the ages of 13 and 17. The victim's Tagged.com account listed her as 14 years old.

The victim told police she had spoken to Vicuna several times over the phone before he asked to meet her in person about 2 a.m. Feb. 19. Vicuna told the girl he was actually 28 and that he "forgot" to change his profile.

"I thought we were just going to talk at first," she said, according to the police report.

About 2:40 a.m., the girl snuck out of her house and met Vicuna down the street from her home, according to the police report. The two talked for about 10 minutes before Vicuna began touching the victim's breasts and genitals. After refusing Vicuna's sexual advances twice and trying to push him off her, the girl finally "gave up on him," at which point they performed unprotected sexual acts and had unprotected intercourse, she told police.

When the victim's mother called her cell phone at about 3:40 a.m., Vicuna turned off the phone, removed the battery and drove to his home in Morgan Hill, according to the police report.

The girl told police that, at that point, she was still "shocked and scared," but was not afraid of Vicuna.

Once at the Morgan Hill home - which Vicuna told the girl he shared with several roommates - Vicuna and the girl had unprotected sex two more times, according to the police report. The first time, the victim again "yelled at him to stop" but "he did not respond and kept going," according to the report. The second time, she "just let him do whatever he wanted," according to the report.

About 6:30 a.m., Vicuna instructed the victim to take a shower, where he joined her and continued the sexual activity until she told him she was uncomfortable and he stopped, according to the police report.

At 8 a.m., the girl and Vicuna stopped for coffee at a Starbucks in Morgan Hill and went to a drug store to purchase the morning after pill, according to the police report. He then dropped her off about 10 a.m. at Oak Grove High School in south San Jose - which was not in session that week - where she waited for her parents. After initially telling them a story Vicuna had concocted about her having to sneak away to help a pregnant friend with an abusive boyfriend, the girl told her parents the truth.

During their investigation, police used the victim's user name and password to access her Tagged.com account, police said. In an online conversation between police and the suspect, Vicuna - believing he was chatting with the victim - assured the girl that she wasn't pregnant and advised her to erase all evidence of their correspondence. He also wrote that he wanted to see the victim again and "maybe do a lil more," a comment he followed up by typing a winking emoticon.

Police arrested Vicuna Feb. 25 after matching the surveillance photo from the Starbucks with Vicuna's driver's license photo and confirming with the Gilroy Unified School District that Vicuna was a district teacher, police said.

Vicuna's bail was set at $2 million and he is currently in police custody. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and will be sentenced 9 a.m. June 2 in Department 24 at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.

Vicuna pleaded no contest to the crimes of lewd and lascivious act on a child, oral copulation with a minor, sexual penetration of a person under the age of 16 and unlawful sexual intercourse with a person under the age of 16. Five other similar counts were dropped.

"Initially we charged him with every conceivable count in case we found any other victims," said Deputy District Attorney Ray Mendoza. "He had been on a Web site advertising himself as underage and looking for girls ages 14 to 17. We didn't know if this would be one of these cases where we'd have a lot of victims."

However, no other victims came forward, Mendoza said.

Vicuna's private defense attorney, Alfredo Morales, declined to comment.

Although Gilroy High School's Web site still lists Vicuna as an Algebra 1 instructor teaching out of room P-5, he is no longer a teacher with the district, said Superintendent Deborah Flores.

"He won't be returning and he's been notified of that," she said.

Vicuna, who was a first-year teacher at GHS and earned $65,000 annually in salary and benefits, according to district documents, was initially placed on paid administrative leave until about a month ago, when the district permanently released him from his contract, Flores said.