Teacher Pleads Innocent to Charges of Molestation

Gary Lawrence Lee, the bandleader and a music teacher at Kraemer Junior High School in Placentia, has pleaded innocent to charges that he molested a 14-year-old female student.

The charges, filed Oct. 20 in North Orange County Municipal Court, include seven felony counts, six of committing lewd acts and one of penetration with a foreign object.

The complaint alleges the incidents took place between the fall of 1986 and May of this year behind closed doors of a classroom both during and after school, said Lee’s attorney, Paul Wallin.

An employee of the student’s father reported the allegations to the Orange County Child Abuse Registry after the student told him she was having an affair with a teacher, Wallin said. Registry officials then called Placentia police.

Lee, 35, of Placentia, has taught music for 11 years at Kraemer Junior High. He is single.

Suspended Without Pay

He was suspended Monday without pay, an automatic action when formal charges of molestation are filed against a school district employee, according to Tim Van Eck, director of human resources development with the Placentia Unified School District. Van Eck said Lee voluntarily removed himself from the classroom when the investigation began two weeks ago.

Lee is one of three Orange County teachers charged this month with molesting students. Robert John Webber, 44, an El Toro High School math teacher, has been charged with three felony counts of sexual contact with a 16-year-old girl. Keith Sheldon Milne, 38, faces 10 misdemeanor counts of annoying and molesting seven girls at Olivewood Elementary School in El Toro, where he taught in a reading laboratory.

Both have denied the allegations.

“We thought these allegations were going to stop,” said Wallin, a specialist in defending child molestation cases who also represents Milne.

But since Oct. 1, he said, “I have eight new cases, four of which are teachers, one is a police officer. It’s an unbelievable coincidence. Three within a week--it’s really a lot.”

Wallin said such allegations generate “shock, outrage, panic” in communities. But among teachers, he said, “There’s a coming together of support (for the accused teachers) you just don’t get for other people.”

Parents, teachers and community leaders have written about 50 letters, filed with the court, in support of Lee, Wallin said.

After voluntarily surrendering himself, Lee last week pleaded innocent at an arraignment and was released on his own recognizance. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Dec. 18.