The University of La Laguna (ULL) has expelled Pedro José Domínguez, the English Philology professor who was sentenced last January to 21 years and seven days in prison for seven counts of sexual abuse against as many students.
University sources have confirmed to this newspaper the information first reported by Editorial Prensa Ibérica, stating that the professor has twenty days to appeal a decision that was communicated to him last week. He can do so either through administrative channels, via an appeal against the rector’s decision, or judicially through the social (or labour) jurisdiction, as he is not a civil servant.
On 23 January, the ULL announced the reopening of a disciplinary case that had been suspended due to the criminal proceedings and the suspension of employment and salary as a precautionary measure.
The university took this decision two days after Canarias Ahora revealed the content of the guilty verdict issued on 13 January by the presiding judge of Criminal Court 4 of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
At the trial held on the same day, Domínguez admitted to all the charges against him, namely making physical contact with his victims without consent and making comments of a sexual nature towards them.
According to official ULL sources, the maximum six-month period for maintaining the precautionary suspension of employment and salary was about to end.
Thus, the instructor of the case proposed the definitive expulsion of the professor from the ULL, and the rector signed the resolution last week. The institution states that this resolution refers to the same facts acknowledged by Domínguez in court.
Before the trial, the professor deposited the amount of 24,500 euros in court as compensation for the moral damages inflicted on his victims (3,500 euros for each of them). Domínguez has not been imprisoned because during the same hearing, the suspension of that sentence was agreed upon on the condition that he does not reoffend within three years.
The sentence did not disqualify Domínguez from working as a professor in the ULL, a role he has performed for almost thirty years. It only banned him from teaching “outside the university environment.” The verdict also required him to undertake a sexual education course.
