A Maryland judge struck down the 2017 sex-abuse convictions of former Montgomery County third-grade teacher John Vigna, ruling that his lawyer performed so badly six years ago that Vigna deserves a new trial over allegations he fondled five students at school.
Vigna, 56, was freed on a $100,000 bond. His 48-year sentence also was thrown out.
“Mr. Vigna has established ineffective assistance of counsel, which requires that his convictions on all counts be vacated,” Montgomery County Circuit Judge David Lease wrote in a 46-page ruling this month.
Lease was unsparing in his findings, asserting that if Vigna’s lawyer had put forth a better defense, the verdict could have been different.
“The evidence of Mr. Vigna’s guilt was not overwhelming, and he was acquitted of some counts,” Lease wrote. “There was no physical evidence presented, and the case turned on the credibility of the witnesses, including Mr. Vigna, who testified.”
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In one key example cited by the judge, Vigna’s trial attorney did not review a video recording of his client being interrogated by investigators. Doing so would have made clear that a written transcript made from that interview had significant errors.
“The transcript that was used by the state was false,” Lease said in court on July 12. “It was just plainly false evidence that was presented to the jury.”
The judge’s ruling did not indicate that prosecutors had known about the errors in the transcripts.
“Trial counsel failed to investigate and prepare Vigna’s defense,” Vigna’s new attorneys, Isabelle Raquin and Steve Mercer, added in court papers, “committed unforced errors which applied to all alleged victims, failed to individually challenge each alleged victim’s motives, and did not exploit their specific weaknesses.”
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In an email, Vigna’s lead trial lawyer in 2017, Thomas Morrow, stated that “I am happy he was awarded a new trial and wish him success in seeking justice. In my opinion, the jury got it wrong and the sentence was excessive.”
In recent hearings that challenged his work six years ago, Morrow spoke about the representation he provided. One of Morrow’s main points in the trial, he testified, was to show that Vigna’s natural personality — outgoing, affectionate, given to hugs — was hardly nefarious.
“He was clearly the most popular teacher in the school, and one of my goals in the case was to establish his character. And his character is an individual who is a very happy-go-lucky individual,” Morrow said in court.
Vigna, who taught at Cloverly Elementary School for more than two decades, has long denied the accusations against him.
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He went to trial in 2017 on 14 charges of sex abuse and other counts that involved five complaining witnesses, who testified that he fondled them outside their clothing at school and often while he was hugging them. A jury convicted Vigna on nine counts involving four of the witnesses.
Lease’s ruling did not declare Vigna innocent, but it makes way for a new trial. Vigna is due in court again for a status conference Aug. 1.
Morrow’s career dates to 1975, when he began as a prosecutor before moving to defense work. He has since represented more than 50 teachers accused in sex crimes, winning multiple acquittals, according to his recent testimony. At Vigna’s trial, Morrow framed complaints against his client as exaggerated or imagined, driven in large part by students having attended a “good touch-bad touch” safety class.
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“They really did not appreciate the significance of what they were saying,” Morrow said of victims, adding that “my theory [was] that this was all promulgated by the well-intentioned but perhaps ill-advised discussions they had with the good touch-bad touch.”
The Montgomery County State’s Attorney’s Office opposed Vigna’s recent efforts to get a new trial. In court filings, prosecutors said Morrow’s defense counsel gave Vigna a fair trial and was clearly good enough that the convictions shouldn’t be tossed.
“While hindsight may reveal ways in which counsel could have performed better, that is not the standard in granting post-conviction relief,” Assistant State’s Attorney James Dietrich wrote.
In Montgomery County, a jurisdiction that has long taken pride in its schools, the allegations against Vigna were particularly striking because they brought to light earlier warnings that he had received from supervisors.
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In 2008, Vigna was admonished for inappropriately having a child on his lap. Three months later, there was a similar incident, according to court records. After a third complaint in 2013, he signed a pledge to avoid “any physical contact at all” with students.
Three years later, after taking the body safety class, an 11-year-old girl told another teacher that Vigna had been improperly touching her for 18 months, according to police allegations filed in court. The girl told the other teacher “that Mr. Vigna made her feel uncomfortable and inappropriately touched her by squeezing her buttocks when he hugged her,” according to court filings. A second student, also 11 and a close friend of the first girl, came forward with similar allegations.
Police filed charges against Vigna related to both girls. Three more students or past students stepped forward. Two girls accused Vigna of “fondling their bodies over the clothing in an open classroom with other students present,” according to court records. A woman in her 20s also came forward with similar allegations dating back to about 2002, according to court records.
Prosecutors brought Vigna to trial over five days in June of 2017.
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One child said the teacher frequently touched her chest, butt and vagina during third grade in 2014-2015, according to testimony and evidence heard at trial. Sometimes the touching happened near his desk or at a back table. Sometimes she was seated on his lap as the class watched movies, including episodes of “The Magic School Bus,” she said.
A jury deliberated for about eight hours before convicting Vigna.
“I’ve seen many, many good people come before me who have done really bad things,” Circuit Judge David Boynton said at his sentencing. “I couldn’t have agreed more with the verdict in the case.”
Vigna’s appeals were denied in Maryland, as was his effort in 2021 to have the U.S. Supreme Court review his case. In 2022, Vigna’s new attorneys filed their petition for post-conviction relief, citing examples of bad lawyering he received. They determined, for instance, that Morrow didn’t review the video recording of Vigna being interviewed by investigators, one that showed him denying that he had improperly touched two of the girls. Vigna firmly said “no” twice while shaking his head, according to the video.
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Yet a transcript, produced by an outside company, used the words “well” and “uh-huh” instead of “no.” Prosecutors at the trial used the transcript, not the video, and they played up his purported non-denial — when questioned by investigators — as the actions of a guilty person.
“The appropriate response would be, ‘I have never, I would never do such a thing,’” the prosecutor at the time, Danielle Sartwell, said, adding, “He says, ‘uh-huh.’ Is that a normal, reasonable response to allegations like this? Ladies and gentlemen, I would submit, not if you’re innocent.”
The judge, Lease, faulted Vigna’s trial attorney for not knowing what the video revealed. Lease also noted that a police report, summarizing the interrogation, stated that Vigna denied the allegations.
“Not only did trial counsel fail to review the recorded statement, but he also failed to review the police incident report which directly refutes the erroneous transcript used by the state,” Lease wrote. “Trial counsel did not object to the use of the erroneous transcript.”
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Prosecutors often use transcripts in trials. And nothing in Lease’s ruling stated they knew about the mistake. Sartwell, now a circuit court magistrate, declined to comment through a court spokesman, citing a judiciary policy of not discussing pending cases outside of court.
Earlier this year, during court hearings, one of Vigna’s new attorneys questioned Sartwell, who said she didn’t recall if she watched the video or compared it with the transcript.
In court filings, the state’s attorney’s office noted that Vigna forcefully denied the allegations at the trial.
“I told all of my students that I loved them,” Vigna told jurors, according to court records. “I believe that you had to love them to lead them, and if they knew that then they would follow you to new heights academically and socially.”
“There has been testimony,” Morrow responded, “that on occasion you kissed a student on the forehead or on the top of the head or a student kissed you on the cheek. Did that ever happen?”
“Yes,” Vigna said. “I would go back and blame that on my Italian family.”
“And did any of those incidents about which we have just been speaking, did that involve any attempt to sexually exploit any of the students in your class?” Morrow asked.
“Absolutely not,” said Vigna.
But there was so much more Morrow could have done, Vigna’s new attorneys asserted. And Lease agreed with much of what they unearthed.
Among the deficiencies, Lease said, was consenting to allow prosecutors to try all the allegations in one trial, not challenging a family member’s testimony about changes in their child’s health, and not bringing in expert witnesses who could “have struck directly at the reliability of the complaining witnesses’ testimony.”
Lease also noted that Vigna didn’t review video-recorded interviews of several of the complaining witnesses. “It is particularly troubling in this case that trial counsel failed to review the video statements of the various witnesses,” Lease wrote. “It would be difficult to exaggerate the significance of these statements to Mr. Vigna’s case.”
In releasing Vigna on bond, Lease imposed conditions. Among them, according to court hearings, Vigna must wear a GPS monitor, have no unsupervised contact with minors and must stay away from Cloverly Elementary School.
The prospect of a new trial means that the five alleged victims may have to testify again.
“This is a horrific outcome,” said Janis Zink Sartucci, a leader of the Parents’ Coalition of Montgomery County, who for years has advocated on behalf of student abuse victims.
Sartucci reported on Vigna’s 2017 trial for her organization and said the case against him appeared strong. She was also struck, she said, by the bravery of the four young girls who testified against him in open court.
“Now the only way we’re going to get this guy back in prison is to have these girls — some of whom are young women now — walk into a courtroom filled with his supporters and go through the trauma of testifying again,” Sartucci said.
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