Teacher to Be Tried on Molesting Charges

A former physical education teacher on Thursday was ordered to stand trial on charges of sexually molesting 17 children from a private Corona del Mar grade school and his Irvine neighborhood.

Harbor Municipal Judge Russell A. Bostrom, who presided over a three-week preliminary hearing, ruled that there was sufficient evidence to try Alan Thomas Rigby, 40, in Superior Court on 32 counts of child molestation. He will be arraigned Feb. 11.

Rigby is charged with 24 felony counts of conducting lewd acts with a minor and eight misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting children, or indecent exposure. He also faces 10 special allegations that he used force in some of the acts and that he violated the position of trust he held as a teacher.

The judge refused to reduce Rigby’s $200,000 bail, despite a lengthy argument from Rigby’s court-appointed attorney, William G. Kelley that Rigby would not abandon his wife and two children to avoid trial. Kelley had asked the judge to reduce his bail to $100,000.

“I don’t have the same level of confidence you do,” Bostrom said. “What troubles me is the public safety issue.”

Rigby, who took notes and showed no outward emotion, waved at his wife, Cathy, as he left the courtroom and told her he would see her soon. Rigby was returned to the Orange County Jail, where he has been held since his arrest in September.

Cathy Rigby, who gave birth to the couple’s second child in November, said outside the courtroom that she was disappointed with the judge’s decision to not reduce bail.

“Only in Newport Beach would a child molestation case have a bail set at this rate as compared to a murder case. There are murderers who have less bail,” she said. “Money talks, and money is buying justice right now.”

Thirteen of the alleged victims were students at Harbor Day School in Corona del Mar, where Rigby was a physical education teacher and track coach during the 1986-87 school year. The 17 alleged victims include three girls between the ages of 13 and 15, and the rest are boys ages 10 to 14. All of the alleged acts occurred between August, 1986, and March, 1987.

John F. Marder Jr., headmaster at the school, said the alleged student victims had handled themselves well in the court proceedings to date.

“I am proud of the children . . . and the credibility they have shown,” he said after the hearing. “I have been a teacher for 35 years. I feel betrayed.”

About 18 parents and relatives of the alleged victims sat on one side of the courtroom and about nine of Rigby’s family members and friends sat on the other.

During the hearing, students testified that Rigby supervised an elite boys club at the school and that prospective members were required to masturbate as part of the initiation. The boys also testified that Rigby required them to sign a typewritten oath agreeing not to discuss the club publicly. Another testified that he had seen Rigby masturbate and that Rigby once showed him a movie in which a woman’s breasts were exposed.

The defense suggested during the hearing that some cases were concocted by the children and that some other incidents may have “illustrated a lack of judgment” on Rigby’s part but were meant has a harmless joke.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis R. Rosenblum said he would seek to file at least four other felony counts against Rigby before the case is brought to Superior Court. If convicted on all counts, Rigby would face 60 to 70 years in prison, he said.

Attorneys said they expect a jury trial to last two to three months.