Huntington Beach : Child-Molesting Suspect Quits School Board Post

Saying that he does not wish “to bring any more shame to this great school district,” Huntington Beach City School District trustee Richard M. Boucher formally resigned from the school board Wednesday, two days after he pleaded not guilty to a child-molesting charge.

Boucher, 61, made his farewell comments in a letter that was read aloud to the school board Tuesday night. The resignation became official Wednesday when it was received by the county superintendent of schools office, district officials said.

Boucher could not be reached for comment Wednesday. But in his resignation letter, he called the past two weeks since he was accused of molesting a 17-year-old boy “the most unhappy turn in my life.”

He blamed the news media for treating him unfairly. “It appears that I am being tried by the newspapers rather than by a court of law that is every citizen’s inherent right,” he wrote.

It was with “deepest of regret and a heavy heart” that he was resigning, Boucher said, adding, “I do not wish to bring any more shame to this great school district.”

District officials appeared relieved that Boucher, elected to the elementary school district board in November, 1985, had decided to step down.

No one had pressured him to leave, school district trustee Pat Cohen said Wednesday. But “he is in a position to not put our school district through this long agonizing process of controversy and he offered freely his resignation,” she said.

District Supt. Diana Peters said Boucher’s troubles should not affect the district of about 5,000 students. The charge against him was “a personal problem,” she said.

Under state law, the district’s remaining four board members now have 60 days to decide whether to appoint a successor to Boucher or hold a special election to replace him.

Boucher, a 1983 winner of the Huntington Beach Chamber of Commerce’s Citizen of the Year award, was charged with one felony count of oral copulation with a minor, Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael C. Koski said. The incident allegedly occurred three years ago. The charge carries a maximum sentence of three years in state prison.