AURORA | A former Aurora teacher will spend three months in jail and be required to register as a sex offender for engaging in a sexual relationship with a former student, an Arapahoe County District Court Judge has decided.
Judge Shay Whitaker on Monday sentenced Gabriel Alsina, 37, to 90 days in jail and five years of intensive supervised probation designed for sex offenders, according to court records. He was also mandated to pay nearly $6,000 in court fees.
Alsina pleaded guilty to a lone felony count of attempted sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust in June. Several other counts, which Alsina originally pleaded not guilty to, were dismissed as part of a plea agreement, records show. A jury trial in the case was postponed for more than a year before ultimately being nixed.
Investigators accused Alsina of having an ongoing relationship with a female student at the VISTA Peak Preparatory during her sophomore and junior years of high school, according to an affidavit filed against the former educator.
Alsina and the girl reportedly engaged in sexual acts at the school, in the trunk of Alsina’s car and at his home in Murphy Creek neighborhood, according to the arrest document.
Police learned of the alleged relationship after receiving a tip from the victim’s therapist, Douglas Parro.
“I would prefer to see him get more time given what he did but I am glad that he’s going to be put on the sex offender list and work through probation to get treatment,” said Karmen Carter, executive director of The Blue Bench, a Denver-based sexual assault prevention and advocacy organization.The sentence may be a result of the fact that jury trials were postponed due to COVID-19 or because the events took place several years ago, Carter said. She said she would be more upset about the sentence if the supervised probation for sex offenders portion was not included.“This person chose to be in a sexual relationship with someone who wasn’t able to consent,” Carter said. “Clearly, he committed a crime.”
Aurora police arrested Alsina on the VISTA Peak campus shortly before 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 7, 2018. A native of Puerto Rico, Alsina had been a science teacher there for four years before his arrest.
Alsina told the victim “things with his wife were not going well and they slept in different beds,” according to the affidavit.
Though Alsina’s bond was originally set at $500,000, a bondsman posted a $150,000 surety on his behalf, granting his release from custody, on Aug. 24, 2018, according to court records.
Alsina will be credited with 18 days of time served toward his 90-day jail sentence.
— Staff writer Carina Julig contributed to this report.