Volunteer teacher pleads guilty to sexual relationship with student

A volunteer teacher at a Las Cruces Catholic School was sentenced in a Las Cruces District Court Thursday morning after pleading guilty to having a sexual relationship with a teenage student.

Gary Vau, 32, pleaded guilty to three counts of Criminal Sexual Penetration in the Fourth Degree and one count for Tampering with Evidence. Vau was sentenced to 364 days in jail and five years of probation. Vau will also have to register as a sex offender for the next 10 years.

The sexual relationship between Vau and the 17-year-old student happened at St. Mary’s Catholic High School, where Vau was a volunteer art teacher. Vau is the brother of the principal there.

In court documents, the student told investigators she had inappropriate contact with Vau 15 to 20 times. Both admitted to having had oral sex in a classroom. The relationship began with text messages in April 2014. The texts became sexually explicit in June 2014 when the student sent nude photos of herself to Vau. Vau was later arrested in April 2015.

The student told investigators she came forward after overhearing Vau tell a sixth-grader to text him. She said she was afraid of what Vau would do to to the sixth-grader.

The victim was in tears Thursday as prosecutors described the sexual relationship between the two in court. While she didn’t speak, her father had some grave words for the way the school handled the situation.

He said while the Las Cruces Catholic Diocese handled the situation correctly, the same couldn’t be said about the school’s principal, who is also Vau’s sister.

“The principal’s actions resulted in my daughter being placed under a tremendous amount of emotional stress as she felt abandoned and branded by the principal as a trouble maker”, he added.

Joe Shattuck, the defense attorney, said the principal of the school turned the situation over to the Archdiocese instead of handling it herself. He said, “She didn’t drop the ball. She did what she thought was best to try to avoid a conflict of interest.”

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces responded to the father’s statement. It said that there appears to be some misunderstanding about the school’s principal’s actions.

It stated, “As soon as she learned of the allegations against Mr. Vau, the principal ordered him to leave the campus immediately and contacted the Children Youth and Families Department (CYFD) to report the allegations. This is in accordance with school protocol for reporting allegations of sexual abuse of a student. CYFD instructed the principal that the victim would have to report the matter to the Las Cruces Police Department herself before there would be any investigation. School officials advised the victim’s family of this instruction.”

It also stated, “The principal advised that Mr. Vau was her brother on the day the allegations were made. She was immediately removed from any connection with the case and all matters dealing with the victim and Mr. Vau were handled by the assistant principal. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Las Cruces also investigated the matter and offered support and assistance to the victim and her family. The Dioceses cooperated fully with the LCPD in its investigation and turned over the results of its investigation to the police.”

Before Vau was taken into custody, he said in court he knew he made some bad decisions, but that he still cares for the family.

Vau said: “I know what I’ve, um, that I’ve made some wrong decisions. I want to apologize to the family, but I’m not a bad person. Anybody in that school, and anybody at that school, if they were up on this stage right now they would (laughs) tell you who I really was. I just made some simple, bad decisions and I will have to pay for that. And I’m doing that now. But I do feel and I still do, I care for that family. And I hope that they’re going to get better. I really actually need no rehabilitation. I just want them to feel that this is, I guess, served in the right way. But that’s really all I needed to say. I’m terrified that I need to leave my children and that I need to leave my family and that this is happening, but I am man enough to face this and I will get through it. No matter what. So, that’s basically it.”

The father of the victim said he prays that Vau gets help and seriously considers his issues and works to change himself for the better.