CALIFORNIA
Mercury News
By Mark Gomez
mgomez@mercurynews.commercurynews.com
SAN JOSE — Melanie Borrelli was home for the weekend, enjoying the annual festival at her old school, when she saw something that alarmed her. It was a familiar face connected with a horrible rumor.
The 19-year-old college sophomore recognized the man working a sound booth as Mark Gurries, who — she had heard — had been convicted of molesting a girl she knew. Borrelli took out her smartphone, Googled his name and found his mug shot on the Megan’s Law website.
She couldn’t believe it. Here was a registered sex offender working at a parish festival with hundreds of children around, including Borrelli’s two younger sisters. Melanie Borrelli found her mom.
“What is he doing here?” she asked her mom, pointing at Gurries and showing her the mug shot.
Parents in the Saint Frances Cabrini Catholic Parish are still waiting for answers to that question first posed Oct. 6 by Melanie Borrelli, a former student at the parish’s Catholic elementary school in San Jose. She and others were even more incredulous that night when, they said, parish priest Father Lieu Vu told them Gurries — convicted in 2010 of molesting a young relative — had a right to be there. In fact, he possessed a letter from the church giving him explicit permission to be a volunteer.
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