Lecturer charged with indecent behavior, solicitation
Nick Todaro, Reporter
10-24-2008
A Louisiana Tech professor was arrested Thursday and charged with
cyber sex crimes in a sting operation led by Kenner police.Ralph Gabriel, 55, a second-year lecturer in Tech’s civil engineering department, was picked up on campus by Kenner police working with Ruston police at about 10 a.m. for questioning, said Det. Brian McGregor with the Kenner Police Department. He was taken to the Lincoln Parish Detention Center, booked on five counts of indecent behavior with a juvenile and a count of computer-aided solicitation for sexual purposes, and taken to Kenner.
McGregor, a member of Kenner’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said Gabriel is suspected of cruising online chat rooms and having sexual conversations with an undercover officer posing as a juvenile. He said Gabriel, who used the screen name “rjg_pe,” contacted the undercover officer on five separate occasions between Sept. 30 and Oct. 8, and in each occasion invited the officer to view his Web cam. Upon viewing the Web cam, McGregor said detectives were confronted with images of Gabriel exposing himself and masturbating.
“We see this every day, and it’s pretty typical of online predators,” McGregor said.
Further, when Kenner detectives interviewed the professor Thursday night, he admitted to exposing himself and masturbating for up to 50 underage girls he met online in chat rooms, McGregor said.
“He also told investigators that there were images of child pornography saved on his computer,” McGregor said.
Computers were seized from Gabriel’s home and office at Tech and will undergo forensic examination, which McGregor added could lead to other suspects.
Gabriel, who earned a master’s in education from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn., in 2003 and had worked as an administrative associate of graduate studies in chemical engineering there before that, has been on staff at Tech since fall 2007.
Tech Marketing and Public Relations Director Dave Guerin said the university checked Gabriel’s background before he was hired, and the investigation showed no prior record.
“There’s been no complaint by any staffers or any students,” Guerin said. “We hate to have this come into our university community, but we as an institution have to protect the integrity of our university.”
University President Dan Reneau was in Baton Rouge on Thursday and was debriefed by phone.
“I’m just shocked, you know,” Reneau said. “You don’t want to believe that these type of things happen, but thank God, if it’s true, that it’s being resolved. You never want something like this at a university or anywhere, for that matter.”
Guerin said Gabriel has been put on leave — it was unclear whether paid or unpaid.
“We have no indication that any of this was happening while he was on campus,” Guerin said.
Until the charges have been investigated, Guerin said, no action will be taken on Gabriel’s employment status with Tech.
If convicted, Gabriel will be required to register as a sex offender and faces imprisonment at hard labor for not less than five years or more than 10 years. With multiple charges, he could be sentenced to a longer period of jail time, McGregor said.
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