Board Members to Investigate Hooven in Sex Case

The Burbank school board on Thursday night named two of its members to a committee to investigate allegations that link board President Joe Hooven to athletic recruiting violations and the Salle Dumm sex case.

Mike McDonald and Denise Lioy Wilcox were appointed and asked to begin an investigation, with the help of the board’s attorney, Richard Currier.

“We are investigating ourselves and one of the members of our body,” McDonald said. “We are going to go after it vigorously and get to the bottom of it.”

The committee’s first session will be Monday, Wilcox said.

Dumm, president of the Burbank Educational Foundation, which raises funds for the Burbank Unified School District, offered a 17-year-old Burbank High football player money for his team in return for sex last summer, according to court records.

Dumm has pleaded not guilty to two felony charges in the case, unlawful sex with a minor and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

According to the records, Dumm had sex with the youth on July 14 and afterward promised him more money if he would return to her home the next night. After the incident, Dumm also asked a private tutor, Maureen Burke, to “destroy” evidence that linked her to the crime in a telephone call overheard by police, the records show.

District officials said no money was ever donated to the football team.

The district was first notified of the incident four months after it occurred, according to Supt. David Aponik.

Ann Cocreham, a school district pupil services director, reported the incident to Burbank police on Nov. 16, the same day former Burbank football coach John Hazelton called Aponik and said he wanted to meet with him to tell him “something big,” according to Aponik.