Mistrial Called in Molestation Case Against Greenup

A judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in the molestation case of Northridge private elementary school owner Campbell Hugh Greenup after jurors said they were deadlocked on charges that he fondled seven female students between 1978 and 1984.

The jurors--at odds over the credibility of the child witnesses and over Greenup’s intent in placing them on his lap and caressing them--split on votes ranging from 9 to 3 in favor of guilt to 7 to 5 in favor of not guilty on 19 separate charges. Earlier in the week, the jury voted to acquit Greenup, 59, on two additional counts of lewd conduct with a child under age 14.

“Mr. Greenup was disappointed, he expected to be exonerated,” said defense counsel Henry J. Hall after Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David A. Horowitz dismissed the jury, which had deliberated for 10 days.

Greenup, on orders from Hall, did not comment.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kenneth R. Freeman, who prosecuted the case, also expressed chagrin at the lack of a verdict after the four-month trial.

A retrial date of July 23 was set by Horowitz, but Freeman gave indications that a firm decision has yet to be made on whether to try Greenup again.

“At this time it is set for trial,” the prosecutor said. “That’s where it stands at this point in time.”

Greenup, free on bail since shortly after his April, 1984, arrest, was accused of molesting girls aged 4 to 11 during regular school hours as they sat on his lap.

While the teacher, who testified in his own defense, repeatedly acknowledged placing the girls on his lap and kissing their hair and rubbing their backs, he contended that he was only acting affectionately toward them.

The prosecution, on the other hand, charged that Greenup sought to sexually arouse himself by fondling their buttocks and genitals if they did not protest.

Of 116 witnesses, 38 testified for the prosecution, including the eight alleged victims. Their allegations were buttressed by testimony from parents, teachers and other children.

The defense, however, called its own support group of parents, teachers and children who told the jury they never saw Greenup touch a child in an improper fashion.

After the mistrial was declared, jury foreman George Bruce Feld, 44, told reporters that “intent and beyond-a-reasonable-doubt were certainly strong factors” in the deadlock.

“The touching was very subtle, very gradual before the molestation occurred,” noted Feld, a playwright. “A lot of people wondered whether or not there was real intent there. . . . There was ambiguity in Dr. Greenup’s method and ambiguity in the minds of the jurors.”

Feld, though, said he personally reached the conclusion that Greenup was guilty of all but two counts and added that he would be “terribly, terribly” upset if there was no retrial.

“In a case like this you either believe the defendant or you believe the complainants. I believed the little girls, every one of them.”

Juror Harry Turner, 34, said he also voted guilty on all but two counts because: “It’s hard for a 4-year-old to continue telling a story for the next five or six years, and say the same thing they did in the preliminary hearing.”

Turner, a technician with the state Department of Motor Vehicles, said the deadlock occurred because three jurors “made it clear from Day One how they were voting . . . they couldn’t believe the kids.

“It was very annoying. They would make statements but they couldn’t put forward anything concrete for others to see.”

Juror Steve Brown, 37, a Whittier telecommunications analyst who voted for acquittal, said, “I voted not guilty but that doesn’t mean I believe he didn’t do it. There wasn’t enough evidence to convict.”

The Greenup case was the second major child molestation case filed by the district attorney’s office in 1984 to end in a mistrial due to a deadlocked jury. In the case of Michael Ruby, a teacher’s aide at the Manhattan Ranch Pre-School in Manhattan Beach, charges were subsequently dropped by the prosecution because parents did not want their girls to have to go through the ordeal of taking the witness stand again in a second trial.

In a third highly publicized 1984 child molestation case, two teachers at the McMartin Pre-School in Manhattan Beach still face trial, although charges have been dismissed against five others.

Staff writer Terry Pristin contributed to this story