photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Mark Gridley appears with his attorney, Vanessa Riebli, at his competency hearing Thursday, May 8, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

A speech pathologist accused of molesting multiple children last winter at a Lawrence elementary school is asking a judge to reduce his bond from $1.5 million to $100,000 cash or surety.

The defendant, 61-year-old Mark Gridley, has been in custody since Feb. 8, when he was accused of a sex crime against a Prairie Park Elementary student. Earlier this month, as expected, those charges were upgraded to include six more children, for a total of 14 charges: seven counts of aggravated indecent liberties with a child and seven counts of kidnapping.

Gridley’s attorney, Vanessa Riebli, says in her motion to modify bond that Gridley is unable to post a bond of $1.5 million and that the addition of new charges has caused him to have to wait until October for his preliminary hearing, at which a judge will decide if there is probable cause to order him to trial. The preliminary hearing was set for July 29, until the state added the new charges two weeks ago.

In her motion to modify, Riebli notes that the purpose of bond is simply to assure the defendant’s appearance in court and public safety.

Riebli cites Gridley’s substantial family ties to the Lawrence area, where she says he has lived for the past 17 years. She said he resides with his wife and two children, but she does not mention that the wife had recently filed for divorce.

Riebli says that Gridley has no prior criminal history and therefore no failures to appear in court. A bond condition of electronic monitoring with home confinement “will assure public safety,” she says in the motion, noting that “his whereabouts will be known at all times.”

Additionally, the court could impose a condition that he have “no contact with children under the age of 16 years old except for family members.”

In the amended complaint, which the state had said it expected to file, the initials of seven children are listed as victims, ranging in age from 6 or 7 to 10 or 11. The complaint provides only birth years, not months. All of the charges are listed as having occurred on Feb. 6 or Feb. 7 of this year.

Gridley, who was recently deemed competent to stand trial, is accused of having abused the young students under the guise of a speech therapy “test” while they were blindfolded and their hands were tied, as the Journal-World has reported.

Gridley’s preliminary hearing will now take place over three days in the fall: Oct. 2,3 and 6.

The motion to modify his bond is scheduled to be heard by Judge Amy Hanley on Monday.