TCC professor talks about harassment that led to plan to kill her

Kimberly Perez, groggy from sleep, answered her doorbell at 3:15 a.m. and stared her would-be assassin in the eyes.

"May I help you?" she asked politely, thinking it was someone in trouble.

The man with the baseball cap began shuffling his feet, as if unsure of himself. Perez recalls exactly what he said next:

"I have some information you might want to know. Someone wants to kill you or someone in your family."

Whatever sleep may have been left in Perez quickly disappeared.

She blurted, "You have the wrong house or you got the wrong girl."

Then he said her name and told her which massage therapist and gym she frequents.

Sufficiently frightened, Perez raised her arm and slid her hand on top of the alarm system plate next to the door. Even though she knew it wasn't operating, her first instinct was to try to scare him.

The man said something vague about being there to help her and then turned and left.

The bizarre events that unfolded from there have since led to the arrests and convictions of the man at her door, a colleague of Perez's at Tidewater Community College, and a third man, all linked to a murder-for-hire plot against Perez.

For the first time outside of court appearances, Perez is speaking publicly about her ordeal with the hope that she can prevent it from happening to someone else. She also recently filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against TCC officials who she says ignored her complaints.

The daughter of a military mom, Perez, now 36, never really had a permanent home growing up. She lived up and down the East Coast, and after graduating from college and getting a master's degree, she worked in Japan, England and Turkey. She married a Turkish man, but that didn't work out.

She said she decided to live in Virginia Beach by closing her eyes and pointing at a map. She's been a TCC professor for about eight years.

Her ordeal began in February 2006 at a dinner celebrating the birthday of Perez's supervisor at TCC, Jay A. Glosser. Both taught classes in information systems technology.

Until that dinner, Perez said she believed she had a strictly platonic, friendly and professional relationship with Glosser, who was married and had children. But that night, Glosser reached his hand under the table and placed it on Perez's knee.

Perez made it clear to Glosser that she had no romantic feelings for him and that his behavior was inappropriate. He apologized profusely, she said, and he assured her it would not happen again.

A month later, while at dinner across the street from the downtown Norfolk campus, Glosser professed his love for Perez and told her he was leaving his wife. He asked her if she was dating anyone.

"I told him that made me uncomfortable," she said. She demanded that he cease such talk. Again, he promised he would.

But he didn't.

Perez would soon learn that Glosser knew about her medical appointments, her massage schedule and the friends she kept outside of work. He left her notes and flowers and messages on her answering machine. She says she believed he was stalking her.

"I can't sleep thinking about you," he said in one phone message, left after midnight on April 8, 2006.

Two days later, Perez reported the incidents to her dean. She said she heard nothing back.

On April 26, 2006, Jimmy Peterson, a TCC dean at the time, called Perez into his office to explain a print-out of a MySpace page that had her photo and a sexually explicit poem on it. Peterson told her Glosser had been given the print-out by a student, who claimed to have found it in a computer lab, she said.

She accused Glosser of fabricating the page and again explained the continuing sexual harassment. Around that time, Perez also notified another dean, Joanne Diddlemeyer, and college Provost Quintin Bullock of the ongoing problems.

In the meantime, Perez said she had discovered that Glosser had been entering her office and rifling through her mail.

On May 4, 2006, Perez filed a written sexual harassment complaint with the college. A week later, she told the school officials that she no longer felt safe around Glosser. Through that month, she said the school did nothing to help her.

Then came the morning of June 1, 2006.

After the sun came up, it occurred to Perez that there might be a connection between the man who came to her door in the dark and Glosser. Her fears were confirmed when the man called her at 10:26 a.m., seven hours after appearing at her doorstep.

He told her he was hired to kill her. But he was reluctant, he told her, because he didn't "do women and children," Perez recalled him saying. He told her if she paid him $10,000 he wouldn't kill her.

The same day, she reported the death threat to Diddlemeyer, who at the time was acting provost. She also reported it to police and hired a private investigator.

Over the next several days, Perez received more calls from the hit man. In one call, he told her he was connected to the Ku Klux Klan and that if he didn't kill her, "some skinheads would come in from Alabama to do it," she recalled him saying. He also informed her during one of the calls that she needed to drop the sexual harassment complaint, providing solid proof for her that Glosser was behind the plot.

She e-mailed Diddlemeyer, stating she could not come to campus for fear of her life. Despite her fears, on June 5, 2006, Diddlemeyer ordered Perez to report to campus for student labs.

The next day, the private investigator called the Virginia State Police and reported the murder plot. Within two hours, detectives were at her house planning a sting operation.

Perez called the hit man and arranged a meeting. She talked him down to $5,000 and agreed to provide a signed statement retracting the sexual harassment complaint. She told him she would place the items in a P.F. Chang's takeout bag and drop it at an agreed-upon location.

She got him to agree to let her bring along a female companion, but he insisted there be no guns.

"I don't want it to be a gun fight," he told her.

"I was terrified," she said. She recalled thinking, "Of all the things I've done in my life, how did I end up here?"

The companion was actually an undercover trooper. As Perez drove to the location, the hit man was talking to her on a cell phone, changing the location two or three times. The trooper, meanwhile, was on a walkie-talkie providing their constant location to other troopers following in unmarked cars.

They ended up at a parking lot near Sentara Leigh Hospital on Kempsville Road.

He yelled into the phone, "Throw the bag out the window." She did, and sped off.

As the hit man pulled up to snatch the bag, which was filled with crumpled newspapers, troopers were immediately on top of him, with shotguns at his head.

The hit man identified himself as F. Devin Scott, a truck driver in his mid-30s who told the troopers that his boss, Raymond Groves, hired him to carry out the plot. Scott agreed to tape a phone call to Groves, which led to incriminating statements and Groves' arrest. Groves then agreed to record phone calls to Glosser, and more incriminating statements were made.

Scott and Groves were later convicted in Virginia Beach Circuit Court. Scott is serving seven years in prison, and Groves is serving eight years. Glosser entered an Alford plea, in which he didn't admit guilt but agreed that the prosecutors had enough evidence to find him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. He has since appealed.

The lawsuit filed by Perez is pending in U.S. District Court. TCC has not yet filed a response and has declined to comment on the matter.

Perez, meanwhile, is left living a life, she says, filled with fears and anxiety.

"I can't got to the store without worrying that someone is following me," she said. "It's a different life."

But she's grateful to the troopers who helped her and her students and colleagues who supported her throughout.

"I don't know how I did it. I know I had a guardian angel," she said. "Internal fortitude comes from somewhere. You just do what you have to do."

Tim McGlone, (757) 446-2343, tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com