More victims of Gilroy High School’s alleged sex-texting teacher have come forward, says the attorney for a teenage girl whose mother filed suit over school officials’ alleged failure to report and fire him in 2014 when obscene messages were sent to the daughter’s cellphone.
“We have been contacted by many more victims of Mr. Le,” said Gloria Allred, the nationally known Los Angeles-based lawyer representing Celest Benn of Gilroy and her 15-year-old daughter, said Tuesday.
The newly discovered victims all are from Gilroy, Allred said. She declined to reveal the number of new victims but promised more revelations soon.
The case, with its overtones of unchecked predatory sexual advances on young girls and boys, has put Gilroy school leaders under close scrutiny since the arrest April 26 of Doug Le, 25, and raised questions about whether school officials and police did all in their power to stop him.
The former Gilroy High School chemistry teacher, track coach and student mentor is alleged to have harassed Benn’s daughter with persistent lurid text messages in October 2014. Benn transferred her daughter to Christopher High School when Le was allowed to continue teaching after police and school officials, including GHS principal Marco Sanchez and GUSD Superintendent Debbie Flores, learned of the behavior from Benn’s complaint.
San Jose police arrested Le last month on suspicion of soliciting lewd photos of minors by dressing as a woman to entice boys into sending photos of them.
Le, who had taught honors science classes since 2013, resigned from GHS on April 29, three days after his arrest and 18 months after Benn brought his behavior to the attention of school officials.
Those officials have been silent on the matter except for a statement issued after a closed-door board of trustees’ session on May 4.
In it, trustees called Le’s behavior unprofessional and unacceptable but said it was not a firing offense and did not rise to the level of a crime.
Flores said shortly after Le’s arrest that she was involved in the 2014 Benn investigation, which found “several inappropriate texts but no evidence of enticing minors to send inappropriate material, like the current charges.”
Benn said after the arrest that she reported the 2014 incident to Gilroy Police, but was told it didn’t appear to be a crime. Police spokesman Sgt. Jason Smith said there’s no record of the complaint and GPD is not investigating it. Benn said the officer told her it was just “social media.”
Allred Tuesday declined to comment on the Gilroy Police Department. But she disagrees that school officials did all they could or were legally required to do.
“Any school administrator with a scintilla of common sense would have immediately recognized Mr. Le’s conduct as a red flag and someone who could pose a threat to the welfare and safety of the students,” Allred said Tuesday.
“Any teacher who texts a young student about oral sex, defecation and her ‘whore mouth’ should not be around children and should have been removed,” she said, adding, “the fact that the school board members, the superintendent and her administration continue to defend their actions in allowing Mr. Le to continue to have access to the children after he admitted to sending these bizarre and obscene messages to a child under their care is very disturbing.”
Allred’s lawsuit also contends Le’s 2014 behavior was so blatantly sexual toward a minor that it falls under laws that require school officials to report it to authorities.
The district’s Uniform Complaint Procedures states that cases of child abuse are to be “referred to County Department of Social Services (DSS), Protective Services Division or appropriate law enforcement agency.”
One of Le’s former colleagues at GHS, Vicki Barone, told Allred during a May 5 press conference outside GUSD headquarters that Le was a temporary employee and as such could have been fired at any time.
GUSD has said that Le in 2014 was called before a three-member committee, which included Superintendent Flores, and that the punishment meted out was all that the district was allowed to do.
Allred claimed earlier this month that Le was “slapped on the wrist” and allowed to continue teaching, endangering other students.
Benn told the Dispatch last month that the texts were intended for a boy who had borrowed her daughter’s cellphone.
Allred, who has been to Gilroy twice on the case, claims that even after Benn reported his conduct to school officials, Le continued to send explicit, sexually-charged texts to her daughter.
In the lawsuit filed May 5 in Santa Clara County Superior Court, Allred says that firing Le in 2014 and reporting him to authorities might have saved as many as 500 young boys from his advances.
