Instructor Is Cleared of Sex Charge Made by Student, 15

A Huntington Beach ballet teacher was acquitted by an Orange County jury Monday of charges that he sexually molested a teen-age dance student.

Anthony Sellars, who runs the Phyllis Cyr Academy in Huntington Beach, said he told himself: “Thank the Lord!” as the verdict was read and added that he plans to start “enjoying life again.”

Jurors in Westminster Superior Court began deliberations Friday and asked to review key evidence in the case Monday morning before notifying Judge Jean Rheinheimer about 11:30 a.m. that a verdict had been reached. The trial lasted almost three weeks.

Sellars, 36, a former professional dancer, has taught thousands of students. Many went on to join the leading ballet companies in America, including the Joffrey, American Ballet Theatre II, the New York City Ballet and the San Francisco Ballet.

Last fall, however, the dance instructor was charged with four counts of oral copulation with a 15-year-old student. The charges alleged that all the acts took place between January and June, 1984, when the girl took private classes at the academy with Sellars.

Although the prosecution told jurors that Sellars was virtually alone with the girl during private lessons, defense attorneys said that other students, passers-by and the girl’s parents had, on occasion, gone into the unlocked studio.

“Studio B (where the alleged acts took place) was really like Grand Central Station,” said Sellars’ attorney, Albert C. S. Ramsey, co-counsel with Edward George.

Both defense attorneys, however, said they believed that jurors focused on conflicting statements made by the girl and those of a Huntington Beach police investigator, Detective Donald Howell, who had to rely on personal notes after he was unable to tape-record a telephone call from the alleged victim to Sellars.

Although the girl and Howell were “credible” witnesses, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael C. Koski, he added that jurors simply felt that they had a “reasonable doubt” based on the evidence.

“I think we presented as good a job as we could. Nobody ever said we had a tape of the conversation,” Koski said.

Howell testified that he was present when the girl called Sellars. He hoped to record incriminating statements by the defendant on a tape recorder. But when Howell forgot to take the tape off the “pause” button, he had to rely on written notes.

In addition, Howell’s note-taking ability was questioned under cross-examination by Ramsey.

“The detective said he was 99.9% sure his notes of the telephone conversation were correct,” Ramsey said. But in another instance, when Howell referred to his notes and they conflicted with the girl’s recollection of what occurred in the studio, “he was 100% wrong,” Ramsey added.

Circumstances surrounding the taping of the telephone call were evidently significant to the jurors, who asked the judge to let them review the court transcript of the conversation between the detective and the girl. Jurors reached their verdict less than an hour later.

Sellars said he is still baffled by the teen-ager’s motivation to testify against him but added that he seeks no vengeance.

“I would just like this whole thing to be dropped now,” he said. “I don’t feel like getting back (at her). I feel very relieved that the right decision came out because it means I can go back to my wife and my baby son . . . and my friends at the dance studio.”

In the future, Sellars said, private lessons at the academy will only be held with the student’s parent or guardian present. A window shade blocking a 3-by-5-foot viewing window will be removed and video cameras may be installed to record dance activity, he said.