Priest arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing 3 kids in SLO County
A Catholic priest was arrested last week for allegedly sexually abusing three children in San Luis Obispo County more than 25 years ago.
The Rev. Theodore Gabrielli, 61, was arrested in Los Osos on Thursday, according to SLO County Sheriff’s Office booking records.
Gabrielli faces three counts of aggravated sexual assault of a minor involving forced oral copulation and one count of sodomy of a child by force, according to court records. He was charged by the District Attorney’s Office on Monday.
The crimes were committed between June 1991 and June 1999, according to the charging documents.
All three children were under the age of 14, according to the charges. At the time, Gabrielli would’ve been at least 27 years old.
The children, identified as three male members of the same family, first met Gabrielli when their family was living in Mexico, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The family became close with Gabrielli and he was allowed to take the three boys with him to many places in California, the agency said. This included his parents’ house in Los Osos — where Gabrielli would sexually assault the boys over the course of about eight years.
The Sheriff’s Office began investigating the crime after it received a child abuse report on Aug. 28, 2024.
The agency asks anyone with additional information or other potential victims to contact the Sheriff’s Detective Division at 805-781-4500. Callers can remain anonymous by calling Crime Stoppers at 805-549-STOP (7867). Tips can also be submitted at P3tips.com or slotips.org.
Priest accused of sexual assault was board member at Los Angeles school
Gabrielli was listed as a member of the Loyola High School of Los Angeles Board of Directors as of Tuesday afternoon, but his bio had been taken down from the school’s website by 3:10 p.m.
The bio, which is able to be viewed using the Wayback Machine Internet Archive, said he had also previously worked for the Most Holy Trinity Parish in San Jose, Dolores Mission church in Los Angeles and two social ministries in Los Gatos.
Deacon David Ford, chancellor of the Monterey Diocese, told The Tribune Gabrielli was not involved in Los Osos ministry work that he was aware of, adding that Gabrielli was a Jesuit priest in San Diego, where the only Jesuit church is Our Lady of Guadalupe.
According to Tracey Primose, a spokesperson for the Jesuits West Province for which Gabrielli is a member, he was the associate pastor of Our Lady of Guadalupe from January until he was removed from the ministry on the day of his arrest, pending the outcome of his court case. He is not currently listed on the church’s staff directory.
Multiple YouTube videos posted online show Gabrielli giving homilies at Dolores Mission Church in Los Angeles during the pandemic in 2020.
On Aug. 23, 2020, he addressed the question of authority.
“Authority isn’t perfect, and we need to understand that people in authority are not perfect,” he said during the homily, which was a sermon about Jesus trusting Peter to lead the church. “If you’re having trouble understanding that, I invite you to open the paper or turn on the television, because right now and for the last several years, our lives have been filled with people in authority who should not have been in authority.”
“True authority cares for us, it watches over us,” he said later in the homily. “Do the people who have authority care for us, like a mother or a father? Or do they try to use their power to control us?”
He concluded: “Let us pray that we, each and every one of us, as leaders, will accept the authority God gives us, and wield that authority gently, compassionately and mercifully, knowing that none of us are perfect. We’re all sinners. But we all want to be close to Christ. And if we’re gonna do this, we gotta do it together.”
Gabrielli’s bail was originally set at $1 million, according to the Sheriff Office’s booking records, but has since been changed to no bail according to court records.
Gabrielli’s arraignment was held at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. He did not enter a plea. He has a bail hearing set for July 8.
This story was originally published June 17, 2025 at 3:50 PM.
