Expanded Evidence to Be Permitted at Molestation Trial

Prosecutors will be allowed to present evidence that Northridge private school operator Campbell Hugh Greenup allegedly molested several young students in addition to the eight for which he will be tried on charges of fondling, a Superior Court judge ruled Thursday.

No additional charges have been filed against Greenup, but the evidence will be used to bolster the present case, prosecutors said.

In all, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth R. Freeman, “22 children and several adults allege that (the) defendant puts children on his lap for sexual reasons.” Some of the allegations have not resulted in criminal charges, he said outside of court, due to the statute of limitations as well as an unwillingness on the part of some victims to testify.

Pattern of Behavior Alleged

Freeman said he will use the evidence to establish a pattern of behavior by Greenup that he believes will support the charges that have been filed.

Defense counsel Henry J. Hall took issue with admitting evidence concerning uncharged acts, saying that several of the 14 victims allegedly involved have publicly denied that they were ever molested by Greenup. Some of them, he added, were not even interviewed by authorities.

Greenup, for his part, angrily denied all of the allegations against him. Outside the courtroom, he said that in order to clear his name, he would be willing to stand trial in connection with the additional alleged victims after his pending trial.

Opening arguments in the case of Greenup, 58, accused of 21 counts of fondling eight young students at the Greenup School, are due to begin Monday before Judge David A. Horowitz.

Horowitz, in ruling on admitting the evidence, did not pass judgment on whether the prosecution’s contentions concerning the additional victims are valid. But he agreed that corroborated evidence should be heard by a jury, even if it does not relate directly to the pending charges.

‘One of the Central Issues’

“The state of mind and the intent of the defendant is one of the central issues in the case,” Horowitz explained.

He added, though, that he had “great difficulty” with allegations that Greenup, while a teacher at a public school, molested a student there. Horowitz said he will not permit Freeman to make reference to acts not committed at the Greenup School during his opening arguments.

According to the prosecution, Greenup had begun having students sit on his lap in class even while still working at the Dearborn Street Elementary School in Northridge during the late 1970s.

At that point, according to documents filed in court by the district attorney’s office, Dearborn’s school principal “suggested it was inappropriate” behavior.

Greenup, who opened his small private school in 1978, was arrested in April, 1984, on charges of placing female students aged 8 to 10 on his lap and then fondling their buttocks and genital areas. The incidents, authorities charged, occurred between 1978 and 1984.