Charges Filed Over Father’s Dispute With Son’s Coach

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office brought criminal charges Monday against a Woodland Hills man who was jailed last week for allegedly verbally threatening his son’s high school baseball coach.

In a six-count complaint, Ronald A. Clebanoff, 38, was charged with disturbing the peace, disturbing the peace on school grounds, trespassing on school grounds and interfering with school activities. The misdemeanor charges carry a maximum penalty of one year in the county jail, said Deputy City Atty. Richard Schmidt.

Clebanoff, who installs window coverings for a living, had been held at the Van Nuys jail on $150,000 bail since his arrest Thursday. A Municipal Court judge released the father of four on his own recognizance Monday afternoon and set arraignment for May 6.

*

The charges stem from a monthlong dispute between Clebanoff and Edmund Gunny, the junior varsity baseball coach at Taft High School. Clebanoff’s 15-year-old son is one of Gunny’s freshman players.

According to Schmidt and Taft High officials, Clebanoff, who had been unhappy with Gunny’s treatment of his son since the beginning of the season, swore at and threatened to physically harm both the coach and a Taft assistant principal at two games, April 15 and 22.

During the second contest, an away game against Chatsworth High, Clebanoff had to be escorted from the premises by Los Angeles Unified School District police after he refused a request by school officials to leave.

Leigh Datzker, the attorney representing Clebanoff, said Monday that the jailing and charging of his client resulted from “spitefulness on the part of LAUSD,” rather than any real danger he posed. While Clebanoff exchanged words with the coach, he was never armed during their confrontations and has no prior criminal record, Datzker said.

“It’s kind of like sending someone to jail in this context for yelling ‘Kill the umpire,’ ” Datzker said. “I don’t see why one’s 1st Amendment rights should be the key to the jailhouse door for a weekend stay.”

*

School officials had other options for resolving the dispute besides Clebanoff’s arrest, Datzker said, but purposely sent him to jail on a Thursday so he would have to spend the weekend in jail.

Datzker said Clebanoff suffers from agoraphobia, commonly known as a fear of public places, but which also is marked by a fear of being in inescapable situations. His condition made his four-day stay in a jail cell particularly distressing, the lawyer said, and the Clebanoff family is considering civil action against the school district.

Los Angeles Unified School District police originally charged Clebanoff with one felony count of making “terrorist threats.” But because the district attorney’s office “did not feel a felony sentence was warranted by the facts of the offense and what we knew about the defendant,” the case was referred to the city attorney, which prosecutes misdemeanors, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Larry Diamond.

Schmidt said that after reviewing the evidence, he also concluded that the more serious “terrorist threat” charge was not appropriate.