A judge has ruled that three women who are suing the Glendale Unified School District, alleging they were secretly recorded as minors in a restroom and a ceramics room by a Crescenta Valley High School teacher, can remain anonymous in their pleadings and in court.
The women are identified only as AWKO Does 67-68 in the Burbank Superior Court lawsuit that alleges negligence, negligent supervision of a minor, negligent hiring, supervision and retention of an employee, negligent failure to warn, train or educate, breach of a mandatory duty and dangerous condition of a public property.
All three women have already engaged in self-harm due to their mental health, according to their attorneys’ court papers.
On Friday, Judge Frank Tavelman granted the plaintiffs’ unopposed motion to keep their identities secret during the course of the litigation even though they are no longer minors.
“The court finds that plaintiffs have shown the matters in their complaint and declarations include highly sensitive and private matters,” the judge wrote, noting that each were victims of childhood sexual exploitation and abuse and that child sexual abuse material depicting them as minors was created, possessed and distributed.
The women stated that the alleged perpetrator is alive and they fear his retaliation on not only themselves, but their children, nieces/nephews and young sports mentees, the judge additionally penned while also noting that the public will still have access to the details of the case.
In previous court papers, GUSD attorneys denied the plaintiffs’ allegations and contend, among other defenses, that their claims are barred by the statute of limitations.
In their motion, the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote that while the general rule requires parties to proceed under their true identities, their clients’ case presents the “rarest of circumstances” and the court should conclude that the three women have an overriding interest in remaining anonymous.
The women’s attorneys additionally state that their clients fear that predators will dox, stalk and harass them and their families if their identities are made public.
The plaintiffs were CVHS students from about August 2001 to May 2004 and during that time they were “sexually groomed, abused and used in the production, distribution and possession of child sexual abuse material” by teacher Rogelio “Roger” Gallardo, the suit alleges.
Gallardo secretly filmed the private parts of the plaintiffs while they were using the faculty bathroom next to the ceramics classroom and/or in the clay-mixing room, the suit alleges. The plaintiffs were anywhere from 14 to 18 years old at the time, the suit further states.
Gallardo also placed a camera in the clay mixing room under a pallet that students would stand on to mix clay so he could record their private parts under their skirts, the suit states. A female student found the bathroom camera in May 2004 and a police investigation revealed that Gallardo had filmed the plaintiffs many times in various stages of undress and put the images on discs for his home computer, the suit filed last July 31 states.
Gallardo put some of the images of the plaintiffs and other minors on the internet, the suit further alleges.
The teacher was sentenced in 2005 to three years in state prison after pleading no contest to 15 felony counts of intent to distribute pornography, nine misdemeanor counts of peeping, eight misdemeanor counts of illegal recording, one misdemeanor count of eavesdropping and one misdemeanor count of destroying evidence, according to the suit.