SANTA FE (NM)
Santa Fe New Mexican
August 26, 2023
By By Phaedra Haywood
A new lawsuit alleges local public school, private school and Catholic Church officials turned a blind eye for years to predatory behavior by former school health aide Robert Apodaca, who is accused in several child sex crimes cases and has pleaded guilty to three counts of molestation in one of them.
The 70-page complaint filed Tuesday in state District Court seeks an unspecified amount of damages from multiple defendants, including Santa Fe Public Schools, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and Santo Niño Regional Catholic School.
It was filed by attorney Paul Linnenburger on behalf of a teen who alleges he was groomed and sexually assaulted by Apodaca in the 2018-19 school year, when he attended Gonzales Community School. The boy was one of four children Apodaca is accused sexually assaulting.
“Apodaca’s outward behavior was textbook sexual grooming,” the lawsuit alleges. “Administrators in the schools where he worked were warned of red flags by others and observed those same red flags themselves. But they did nothing to stop him.”
The suit accuses officials of sheltering Apodaca and silencing “the voices that raised concerns about him.”
“Emboldened by the indifference, Apodaca took advantage of their protection to keep abusing more children within Santa Fe Public Schools,” the suit says.
When former Gonzales Assistant Principal Robin Chavez became the principal at Santo Niño, she brought Apodaca with her, the lawsuit says, adding he was accused of abusing children there.
Santa Fe Public Schools spokesman Cody Dynarski declined to comment on the lawsuit Friday because the district had not yet been served with the complaint.
Leslie Radigan, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, wrote in an email Friday, “The Archdiocese of Santa Fe cannot comment on possible pending litigation and we continue our efforts to eliminate any sexual abuse throughout Archdiocesan facilities.”
The First Judicial District Attorney’s Office charged four people, including Chavez, archdiocese Superintendent Susan Murphy and victim assistance coordinator Annette Klimka with failure to report an incident at Santo Niño involving Apodaca in 2021. However, a judge dismissed the charges early this year after attorneys argued in part the incident violated school policy but didn’t constitute a crime.
As a public school employee, the lawsuit says, Apodaca had extensive access to the young plaintiff and information about his vulnerabilities, medications, health care needs and mental health status.
“Apodaca took this access and used it to emotionally and mentally manipulate and abuse” the boy, who has since turned 18, the complaint says.
“For instance, Apodaca would provide gifts and purport to offer father-like guidance,” the suit says, adding at other times Apodaca would mock and belittle the boy, “playing on Plaintiff’s insecurities.”
Apodaca drove the boy to various locations around Santa Fe in his private vehicle, including events sanctioned and sponsored by the school, according to the lawsuit. “This happened too many times for Plaintiff to remember and involved sexual abuse.”
Apodaca was 21 when he began working as a nurse aide at Santa Fe Public Schools in 2012 and was employed there almost continuously until 2020, according to the lawsuit. He worked at various schools and an after-school program.
Apodaca was “unusually physical with specific schoolboys at Gonzales,” the lawsuit says.
Sometimes he would walk around the school holding hands with the plaintiff, then a middle school student, the complaint alleges, adding teachers noticed these behaviors and “even joked about it among themselves.”
A security guard who witnessed this “alarming behavior” reported it to school administrators, who downplayed her concerns and told her to “mind her own business,” the suit says. The guard alleged she had seen Apodaca and a young boy, who looked “sad and scared,” emerge from the nurse’s office, which had been locked and dark.
“In an apparent attempt to cover up Apodaca’s conduct,” school officials instructed the security guard “not to write a report on the incident,” the complaint says. The guard complied, fearing she was at risk of losing her position.
Apodaca, 32, resigned from Santo Niño in 2021 after a fellow employee reported she had discovered him in a dark, locked room with a 9-year-old boy on his lap.
He later was charged with molesting that child and three others, including the plaintiff.
The judge rejected two plea agreements for Apodaca, including one that would have resolved all the cases against him and would have given a judge discretion to sentence him to between 18 and 30 years.
Apodaca pleaded guilty to three counts of criminal sexual contact last month without a negotiated agreement with the District Attorney’s Office, which gives the court discretion to sentence him to between three and 45 years of incarceration.
He was sent to a state prison in Los Lunas to undergo a 60-day diagnostic evaluation before his sentencing.
The victim in that case filed a civil complaint in July, which was updated earlier this month, making similar accusations against Apodaca and Santa Fe Public Schools. The boy alleged the abuse began when he was 10 and continued until Apodaca was arrested in 2021.
Apodaca still faces charges in two cases. His public defender, Julita Leavell, declined to comment Friday, citing pending trials.
The District Attorney’s Office dismissed the case involving Linnenburger’s client in December, “pending further investigation.” The case was marked as “reopened” in April.
District Attorney’s Office spokesman Nathan Lederman declined to comment Friday on whether the criminal case would be refiled.
Linnenburger’s lawsuit compares Apodaca to Gary Gregor, a serial child molester who taught for nearly two decades at schools in Santa Fe and Española before he was accused of sexual abuse in 2009. The allegations first became public in civil lawsuits; Gregor was criminally charged in 2017 and found guilty following three trials in 2019 and 2020. He was sentenced to nearly 200 years in prison.
Española Public Schools paid about $21 million to settle lawsuits accusing Gregor of abuse. Santa Fe Public Schools paid about $7.2 million to settle civil cases filed by two women who alleged Gregor assaulted them at the now-defunct Agua Fría Elementary School.
Local museum docents had reported inappropriate touching between Gregor and Agua Fría students during a school trip in 2004, prompting him to resign. But Santa Fe district officials provided Gregor with a neutral recommendation that allowed him to be hired in Española.
“In that case, Santa Fe Public Schools defended their actions and denied the allegations at first, only to see Gregor convicted and sent to prison while the school district paid millions of dollars to his victims,” Linnenburger wrote in the recent lawsuit.
“But while Santa Fe Public Schools was paying for Gregor’s atrocities, it turned a blind eye to another predator on its campuses, this time in the nurse’s offices of their community schools — Robert Apodaca.”
Phaedra Haywood phaywood@sfnewmexican.com