Headed Fountain Valley High’s Baseball Team : Ex-Coach Guilty in Paycheck Theft Case

The former varsity baseball coach at Fountain Valley High School has been found guilty of misdemeanor counts of grand theft and forgery involving a $1,365 school paycheck meant for another coach.

Tom DeKraii, 34, who quit as head coach last May, could be sentenced to a maximum of a year in jail and fined $1,000. He is scheduled to be sentenced by West Municipal Judge Dennis S. Choate on Jan. 5, 1988.

DeKraii was found guilty after jurors deliberated less than half a day Thursday

The dispute was over a school district paycheck last year meant for Al Walter, the head coach of the Fountain Valley High School junior varsity baseball team. DeKraii testified at his trial that Walter told him to pick up the check for him, sign his name and cash it. DeKraii added that Walter also told him he could use the money for baseball fees and equipment. DeKraii also said he eventually repaid Walter all the money.

Walter, who lives in Iowa except for the six months of the year that he is in Fountain Valley, says he only asked DeKraii to mail the check to him. He also said DeKraii never paid him back, even though he asked for the money several times during the school year.

Walter worked under DeKraii, and the two were close friends at the time the check was issued.

“My case is that Mr. DeKraii is lying,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Alfredo L. Silva told the jurors.

Even if DeKraii did spend some of the money for fees and equipment, the evidence presented in court left at least $400 to $500 unaccounted for, Silva told the jurors.

DeKraii, the Fountain Valley head baseball coach for six years, quit last May but said at the time that it was because “our district isn’t promoting athletics as much as it used to, and I lost a little of my enthusiasm this year. It was time for a change.”

But a month after he resigned, the dispute with Walter reached the Fountain Valley Police Department. DeKraii, who teaches special education at the high school, was arrested on the first day of school two months ago. He has been on “special assignment” at the school since then, according to his attorney, J. Barry Moses.

Moses said DeKraii was upset but took the jury’s verdict well “under the circumstances.”