• Trial begins for homosexual East Bay teacher charged with molesting 15

    From GLAAD Community News@21:1/5 to All on Wed Mar 8 22:25:43 2017
    XPost: sac.general, alt.homosexual, alt.politics.immigration
    XPost: talk.atheism

    MARTINEZ — Ron Guinto molested young boys inside tents, motel
    rooms and dorms, even inside his Richmond classroom while class
    was in session, a prosecutor told a jury Monday during opening
    statements in the former charter school teacher’s molestation
    trial.

    For more than a decade, Guinto would target almost exclusively
    11- to 12-year-old boys, often from Spanish-speaking families,
    who looked up to him as their instructor, online friend, church
    volunteer and Boy Scout leader, prosecutor Alison Chandler
    explained during opening statements in the molestation case that
    allegedly stretched from the East to South Bay to Yosemite and
    campsites across Northern California.

    Guinto, 34, has pleaded not guilty to 90 molestation counts
    involving 15 boys, including anal sex and oral copulation,
    dating back to the early 2000s when he was a San Jose State
    University college student.
    On Monday, Guinto, wearing a dark gray suit, sat silently taking
    notes. His family members sat behind him in court, his mother
    reading Bible prayers to herself. They declined to comment
    outside court.

    Guinto’s attorney Ernie Castillo told jurors his client was
    living a “gay teacher’s nightmare,” saying that “locker room-
    type behavior among guys” was being misconstrued as sexual
    abuse. Castillo said one boy’s complaint about how Guinto
    addressed him on Facebook launched a witch hunt that led to
    “false rumors, gossip.”

    Castillo shared for the first time publicly that Guinto had a
    handwritten addendum added to his contract with Making Waves
    allowing him to communicate with students on sensitive topics
    involving Camp Epic, an extracurricular leadership group he
    founded.

    “His career was turned upside down by administrators at Making
    Waves,” Castillo said. “Being a gay teacher was not easy.”

    The bulk of the alleged abuse occurred between 2010 and 2013,
    while Guinto worked for Making Waves Academy, a Richmond charter
    school.

    Eleven of his alleged victims were Making Waves students who
    attended Camp Epic, a “Boy Scouts troop hybrid,” which professed
    to teach children leadership skills and promised college
    scholarships to children who worked their way up the ranks,
    Chandler said.

    “Camp Epic was a front. A front so the defendant could gain
    access to young children to molest them,” Chandler told the
    jury. “They would hike into the middle of nowhere with no
    phones, no iPads, nowhere to phone a friend for help.”

    Guinto would choose which students would stay in his tent and
    encouraged everyone to share sleeping bags for warmth. Those who
    turned down his requests were left to sleep in the cold,
    Chandler said.

    “What happens at Camp Epic, stays at Camp Epic,” Chandler said
    Guinto would tell the children. And it did, up until 2013 when
    one boy told his mother about the abuse and Guinto was exposed.

    Chandler told the jury that Guinto was 20 when he allegedly
    molested his first 12-year-old victim in his San Jose State dorm
    room. Two of his South Bay victims were under his watch as their
    Boy Scouts volunteer, Chandler said. The organization eventually
    sanctioned him.

    Guinto portrayed himself as an ROTC mentor to the parents of one
    of his first victims, even creating a permission slip, Chandler
    told the jury. “That seedling grew to Camp Epic 10 years later,”
    she said.

    Now 27 years old, that victim was watching “American Idol” on TV
    with his family when a news teaser during a commercial break
    showed Guinto’s face following his 2013 arrest.

    “It rippled through his entire body and he told police,” she
    said.

    Castillo countered that Camp Epic was a legitimate leadership
    program for kids hatched as part of Guinto’s master’s thesis
    while attending Touro University in Vallejo.

    “Not only were kids enjoying going to Camp Epic, they would
    return over and over and over again,” Castillo said.

    The defense attorney showed jurors a copy of Guinto’s Making
    Waves employment contract with a handwritten addendum below his
    signature with an asterisk.

    “Will have communications with students outside (Making Waves
    Academy) through Camp Epic, outdoor youth leadership program,
    which may involve conversations with sensitive topics,” the
    contract wording states.

    Castillo said that gave permission for Guinto to communicate
    over social media with students, despite school rules forbidding
    it.

    “That single (parent Facebook) complaint had nothing to do with
    sexual allegations, and led Making Waves to assume false
    assumptions … and led them on a wild goose chase,” Castillo said.

    He indicated that Guinto, who is in custody, will take the
    witness stand during the trial, which is expected to last months.

    http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2016/10/31/trial-for-east-bay- teacher-charged-with-molesting-15-boys-begins/
     

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)