SAN LUIS OBISPO (CA)
The Tribune [San Luis Obispo CA]
April 9, 2026
By Chloe Shrager
A man from Mexico said he didn’t know the priest who allegedly molested him for years was also doing the same thing to his brothers.
Rev. Theodore Gabrielli sat in the San Luis Obispo County Superior Court on Thursday listening to the man, Oscar, describe years of alleged childhood sexual abuse at the hands of the priest. Oscar was the second witness to take the stand in the case’s multi-day preliminary hearing.
Gabrielli, 62, is charged with 35 counts of forced oral copulation, sexual abuse, forcible lewd acts, aggravated sexual assault and sodomy by force that allegedly took place across multiple California counties, including in San Luis Obispo County. All of the charges are for acts allegedly committed against children under the age of 15 between 1991 and 2010.
Four alleged victims have come forward against the priest: Oscar and two of his brothers, Patricio and Felix, who are from Mexico, and a fourth victim, Steven, from San Jose, who is not related to the family. They are all going by their first or middle names only to protect their identities.
The family from Tijuana, Mexico, allegedly became close with Gabrielli when the brothers were young, and the priest was allowed to take the three boys with him to many places across Mexico and the United States, including to San Luis Obispo County. Steven, who is not a member of the family, was also allegedly permitted to travel with Gabrielli.
Gabrielli was arrested on June 12 and accused of sexually assaulting the boys on these trips, including at his parents’ house in Los Osos over the course of about eight years. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.
At the first preliminary hearing day in February, Patricio recounted years of alleged abuse across the many locations, memories that for a long time confused him because of his close and loving relationship with the priest.
Oscar testified remotely over Zoom from Tijuana on Thursday, sharing a very similar account as his brother did previously — except that he was unaware of what was allegedly also happening to them.
Upon meeting the young boys at a local Catholic center the family frequented while growing up in Tijuana, Gabrielli — who Oscar called Father Ted — became extremely close with the family, Oscar said. Oscar, now 44, said he was around 10 or 11 years old at the time.
Oscar called Gabrielli his “godfather” and said the priest provided the family spiritual and financial support and gave the boys their first communion.
He would also host them overnight for sleepovers at the Catholic center, Oscar said.
There, he remembers waking up to Gabrielli molesting him “more than a few times.”
It would start by Gabrielli checking on Oscar and his brothers to make sure they were asleep, Oscar said. Then, he would start to touch them.
Similar to his younger brother, Oscar said he did not know how to tell Gabrielli to stop.
“I loved him so much,” Oscar said. “He became like a father to me.”
Sometimes Oscar would “try to turn around in a way to make it stop,” but most of the time, Gabrielli wouldn’t, Oscar said.
When Oscar was around 13 years old, he and his brothers started traveling to the United States with Gabrielli, who helped the boys get passports and visas, he said.
They would take day trips to the San Diego Zoo and overnight trips elsewhere on the boys’ holiday and summer breaks from school, including San Jose, Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, national parks like Sequoia and Yosemite and most commonly Gabrielli’s parents home in Los Osos.
The abuse occurred on several of these trips, most commonly when they were staying in Los Osos, Oscar said. There, Gabrielli again would come into the boys’ room at night to “try to check” if they were sleeping, Oscar said.
Then, Gabrielli would touch him, Oscar said. Sometimes, he would wake up and his underwear would be wet, he said.
Oscar started to knot the waistband of his shorts “really really tight” when he slept so that Gabrielli could not pull them down, he said. “I feel like I needed to do it all the time,” Oscar said.
Oscar believed Gabrielli tried not to wake him while he molested the boy. Oscar said he hoped that if he just stayed still, it would stop.
“I never asked for it,” Oscar said. “I never wanted it to happen.”
When Oscar would wake up in the morning, he would never say anything to his brothers, to Gabrielli or to Gabrielli’s parents — who he regarded as his own grandparents — about what had happened. At the time, he didn’t understand it himself, he said.
“I would feel helpless because I didn’t know what to do,” Oscar said. “Like I said, how do I process this? At the beginning, I thought it was just — I thought it was just going to be, like, once or twice.”
But it kept going, he said.
Oscar said he never talked about sex with his parents or anyone else, so he didn’t know what was happening to him was wrong. All he knew was that he felt uncomfortable, like he was being “chased,” he said.
“Nobody was there to tell me that was completely wrong, and nobody was there to guide me and tell me this situation, as an adult touching me like that, it was wrong,” Oscar said. “There was nobody there, and the only person I ever trusted … it was Ted.”
“How would I process this situation?” Oscar said. “How would I process this information in my head, telling the guy who is actually taking care of us, ‘This is wrong’?”
Witness confronted priest, didn’t know about brothers’ abuse, he says
For a long time, the abuse was confusing for Oscar. Most of the time, he wanted to be around Gabrielli and his brothers, and he felt cared for and looked after by the priest.
“It was just at night when I felt things would go wrong,” he said.
As Oscar got older and more conscious of what was happening to him, he eventually stopped wanting to travel to the United States with Gabrielli, he said.
When he was around 16 or 17 years old, Oscar finally confronted Gabrielli, he said.
Oscar called Gabrielli and told him that what he did was sexual abuse and that his mother knew, he said. Oscar remembers Gabrielli apologizing and promising not to see Oscar’s parents again. Oscar stopped talking with Gabreilli after that, though his brothers continued to visit him.
Oscar eventually reached out to Gabrielli for economic support eight or 10 years later when Oscar was married with children and living in the United States, he said.
When asked by Ilan Funke-Bilu, Gabrielli’s defense lawyer, on cross-examination why he didn’t confront the priest earlier, Oscar said again it was “because I was so young … I didn’t understand.”
“It was not easy for me” he said.
But even after he ended his relationship with Gabrielli, Oscar never suspected the priest was also molesting his brothers, he said. Oscar never saw it happen to them, and just like him, they never behaved differently toward him or said anything.
In fact, he didn’t know he and his brothers had allegedly experienced the same thing until Felix started to file the case against Gabrielli last year, he said.
“I thought it was just me,” he said.
If you or someone you know are a survivor of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline at 800-656-4673. The hotline offers a range of free services including confidential support from a trained staff member, help finding a local health facility, legal and medical advice and referrals for long-term support.
Survivor support and resources are also available through Lumina Alliance at luminaalliance.org or their Crisis and Information Line at 805-545-8888.