Corpun file 1367 at www.corpun.com

The Gateway, Virginia, 29 August 1997

Cadet testifies about nudity, secret rituals with teacher

PALMYRA, Va. (AP) -- A Fork Union Military Academy cadet and a teacher at the school started a secret society that involved nude activities, paddling and bondage, the cadet testified at the teacher's trial Thursday.

Former Fork Union teacher Gregory A. Moyer, 42, faces 16 counts of taking indecent liberties with children from February 1994 to early 1996. The former science teacher faces up to 90 years in prison if convicted.

The student, 13 when the alleged activities began, said Moyer would paddle him, with and without clothes, for infractions such as sleeping late or visiting other cadets without permission.

The cadet said he and Moyer started a secret society with its own shield of crossed swords. Initiation included he and Moyer running nude on the school's cross country course, he said. He testified that Moyer took pictures of him naked "for documentation."

The two also took turns tying each other to a pull-up bar in the doorway of Moyer's apartment, the cadet said. He said when he was bound by the hands to the bar, Moyer would spray shaving cream over him and hit him with a newspaper.

"Then I did the same to him," the cadet said.

As a final initiation, the two took turns drawing a picture of the society's shield on each other's buttocks. Evidence introduced in Fluvanna County Circuit Court Thursday included photographs of those drawings.

Police were led to Moyer's apartment after an administrator at the academy saw photographs of naked cadets there in 1996.

The boy still attends the private military prep school about 30 miles west of Richmond.

The defendant's lawyer, W. Reilly Marchant, said in court that though some of Moyer's behavior was unwise, "this is anything but sexual nature events."