Three former Española students settle Gregor sex abuse suit for $11 million

Oct. 3--The insurers for Española Public Schools have paid out $11 million to three former students of Gary Gregor, a onetime teacher convicted earlier this year on 12 criminal counts of sexually abusing children.

According to a civil case settlement agreement The New Mexican obtained Wednesday through a public records request, the young women agreed to drop the federal lawsuit they filed in 2017 against the school district, Gregor and Ruby Montoya, who was principal of Fairview Elementary School more than a decade ago, when the plaintiffs alleged they were sexually abused by Gregor in his fourth-grade classroom.

The settlement agreement, dated Sept. 5, said New Mexico Public Schools Insurance Authority would pay out the $11 million to the three women following dismissal of the case, which occurred Sept. 27.

Cammie Nichols, an attorney representing the women, said she is optimistic about their future following settlement of their case.

"I think that they are all admirable young women, and they are brave, and they are doing their best to be productive members of society," Nichols said in an interview Wednesday.

They are among several women who have accused Gregor of rape and molestation between 2004 and 2008 at elementary schools in both Española and Santa Fe. Gregor, 62, has been named in a series of state and federal lawsuits filed since 2014 and was first indicted on criminal charges in 2017.

In May, a judge sentenced him to a 108-year prison term in a case involving two women who were students at Fairview in 2007-08. Gregor has appealed his conviction in the New Mexico Supreme Court. He still faces additional charges in two state District Court cases stemming from allegations in Santa Fe and Española.

Many of the civil cases have been settled. Española Public Schools agreed in a series of settlements in 2018 to pay nearly $10 million to women who filed lawsuits against that district.

Nichols is representing some of Gregor's former Santa Fe students who have a case pending in federal court, accusing him of sexually abusing them in 2004 at the old Agua Fría Elementary School.

Gregor had worked as 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 before coming to New Mexico, Deputy Attorney General Clara Moran said at his sentencing hearing in May, but he was never criminally charged in either state.

Concerns about the teacher emerged in Santa Fe in 2004, when employees at the Museum of International Folk Art reported to school district officials they had seen Gregor inappropriately touching Agua Fría Elementary fourth-graders during a field trip to the museum.

The district eventually served Gregor with a notice of discharge, but after he agreed to resign, no one reported him to police, and district officials agreed to provide a neutral recommendation to his next employer.

Española Public Schools hired him in 2005.

He first taught at Mountain View Elementary School in Truchas and was transferred to Fairview Elementary during the 2007-08 school year.

According to testimony presented during his trial in May, Gregor "groomed" his students by giving them gifts, selecting them for special class privileges and inviting them to his home.

He took students into a closet, where they said he kissed and digitally penetrated them.

Women who testified at Gregor's trial said they reported him to Montoya. Instead of calling police, they said, the principal reprimanded them and told them not to make any more false reports about Gregor, who was her friend.

One girl's parent finally reported Gregor to Española police in 2009, but he still wasn't charged.

A New Mexico law firm advised the state Attorney General's Office in a 2011 letter that Gregor was a predator who should be prosecuted to protect the community.

It wasn't until 2017 -- three weeks after one of Gregor's accusers appeared on the television program Dateline for an episode about teachers who were serial child sexual abusers -- that the Attorney General's Office took action against him.

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