Pair Ordered to Stand Trial on Sex Charges

A judge Wednesday ordered a 63-year-old Santa Paula High School teacher and his former wife to face trial on charges that they used ropes and sex toys to repeatedly molest two preteen girls.

Gilbert Wayne Wright faces three sex abuse charges and 46-year-old Dianna Nice faces nine counts of aiding and abetting lewd and lascivious acts with a child at Wright’s Santa Paula home between December 1996 and June 1997.

The girls, who live in Oklahoma and are half-sisters, were 12 and 9 years old at the time the alleged sex crimes occurred. If convicted, Nice and Wright face sentences of 25 years to life in prison.

“Tying and binding a 12-year- old girl is unusual,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Audry Rohn, after more than an hour of often graphic testimony from an investigator with the district attorney’s office.

Wright and Nice will be arraigned March 23 in Ventura County Superior Court.

The two have pleaded not guilty to all charges and intend to vigorously fight the case against them, said Chuck Samonsky, who represents Wright.

“The district attorney in their own investigation has proved these alleged victims are very troubled,” he said, describing the girls and their mother as “very vindictive. There is substantial motive for them to concoct a story.”

The lurid testimony included accounts of a naked Wright and Nice forcing the girls at separate times to participate in a variety of sex acts. Investigators believe the older girl was under the influence of liquor on at least one occasion.