“Ringleader calls hazing a 'lapse in judgment'”

Ringleader calls hazing a 'lapse in judgment'

Posted: 03 Aug 2010 08:55 PM PDT

Michael Gallegos said he would have liked to have "10 to 20 friends" testify on his behalf in court Tuesday, but he doesn't have any friends left.

His father said his son once had 400 contacts in his cell phone. He now has three.

The once-popular, promising Las Vegas Robertson High School football and wrestling star told a state district judge on Tuesday that he is not a "monster" and "not that person you see in the news," adding that he and his family had suffered a great deal over the past two years.

The pleas for leniency and painting of himself as a victim of sorts fell on a courtroom of unsympathetic ears Tuesday in Santa Fe as Gallegos, the ringleader of an August 2008 hazing case in which two younger football teammates were sodomized with a broomstick and several others assaulted, was sentenced to two years in a juvenile jail, the full sentence requested by the state.

"He violated my son in a way that no human being should be violated," said Debbie Griego, one victim's mother. "You are a sick individual."

In May, the 18-year-old Gallegos pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal sexual penetration, three counts of attempted criminal sexual penetration and a count of conspiracy. He was one of six defendants in the case and the last to be sentenced.

The six attackers — all upperclassmen — assaulted six other students at a preseason football training camp as part of a hazing ritual that began with trash-talking about girlfriends, according to a civil lawsuit that has since been filed in the case. The incidents occurred at the Western Life Camp in Gallinas Canyon near Las Vegas, N.M., between Aug. 11 and Aug. 14, 2008.

"I wish there were better words I could use," Gallegos said, "but I just had a lapse in judgment in two days of my life. I beg you not to judge me on that."

State District Judge Mark Macaron told Gallegos he was happy to see all the strides the young man has made over the past two years. After Gallegos and his family moved from Las Vegas to Albuquerque, Gallegos earned his GED and completed 42 hours of course work at The University of New Mexico, in addition to holding a job and doing volunteer work. But Macaron said there was seemingly no other option than to adopt special prosecutor Henry Valdez's recommended sentence.

"Mr. Gallegos, your life is not over because of this," Macaron said. "It could have been 30 years."

Under the New Mexico Children's Code, Gallegos will likely be incarcerated for 21 months in a juvenile facility and serve the final 90 days of his two-year sentence on supervised probation. He was not given credit for any of the supervised probation or house arrest he has served over the past two years.

The sentence was double the length of what two other defendants recently received in the case, but as Valdez pointed out, it was Gallegos who played the biggest role in the crime — not only instigating the abuse itself, but also in trying to cover it up.

"The only conclusion ... is that there was one person leading the charge," Valdez said, "and that was Mr. Gallegos."

Valdez didn't deny that Gallegos and his family went through a lot over the past two years, but said it was all pain he brought on himself.

"The victims' lives have been altered, too," Valdez pointed out, adding that while they might still be allowed to go through their high-school years with classmates and friends, unlike Gallegos, because of what happened, "they won't do it with the same degree of innocence."

Gallegos' attorney, Billy Blackburn, requested his client be placed on probation and be allowed to continue his education at UNM. Macaron requested that Gallegos be allowed to continue his education online while in jail.

While Tuesday's sentencing seemingly brings an end to the criminal side of the case, the victims have already filed a civil lawsuit.

Named in that lawsuit are the Las Vegas City Schools Board of Education, the district's current and former superintendents, the athletic director at Robertson High School at the time of the attacks, coaches for the school's football team, the six attackers, their parents and the owners of the camp where the assaults took place.

The complaint, filed in Las Vegas, alleges that while the Robertson football program has been successful — winning state titles in 2005 and 2006 — it "has also tolerated and/or encouraged an ongoing, widespread and pervasive culture of inappropriate sexual behavior involving Robertson administrators, staff, teachers, coaches and students."

Blackburn said in court Tuesday that if people thought the criminal case, which he called Book 1, was a long, drawn out ordeal, they haven't seen anything yet.

"Book 1 is a pimple on an elephant compared to what Book 2 (the civil lawsuit) is going to be in this case," he said.

Contact Geoff Grammer at 986-3060 or ggrammer@sfnewmexican.com.

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