LA CRESCENTA : Coach Investigated on Drug Charges

The district attorney’s office is investigating whether charges should be brought in the case of a Little League coach and his live-in girlfriend who were arrested last week on suspicion of possessing and selling cocaine out of their La Crescenta home.

Meanwhile, Michael Benedetto, 38, and Shannon Burris, 31, are free on $50,000 bond, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lawrence McGrail said Wednesday.

Benedetto declined comment Wednesday pending consultation with an attorney.

The arrests were made last Thursday, after Glendale narcotics officers, acting on a tip, served a search warrant at the home the couple shares in the 2600 block of Altura Avenue. Officers found two ounces of cocaine, valued at about $9,000 on the street, and drug paraphernalia in a safe, Investigator Tom Lorenz said.

Since February, Benedetto has been coaching a T-ball team for 7- and 8-year-old boys and girls and a softball team for 13- to 15-year-old girls in the Crescenta Valley Little League, officials said. His children also play on the teams. Before that, he was elected president of the Glendale-Crescenta Valley Little League in 1990 and 1991 and helped manage some of the league’s teams. The 40-year-old league has since splintered into smaller divisions throughout Glendale and La Crescenta.

“I used to keep score for him,” said Barbara Estey, president of the Verdugo Little League. The arrest “is a shock to all of us. It seemed like he had the kids’ best interest at heart.”

The Crescenta Valley Little League Board of Directors is expected to decide whether to suspend Benedetto from coaching, pending the outcome of the drug case, said Mike Malone, district administrator for Little League in Glendale, La Crescenta, Tujunga and Sunland.

“We don’t want to judge anybody before the court does,” Malone said. “But in the same token, we want to make sure we don’t expose our children to anything illegal.”