Track Coach Is Released From Jail After Bail Is Lowered

A Pasadena high school track coach charged with molesting two students was released from jail Monday after a judge slashed his bail from $1 million to $100,000, calling the larger amount “highly excessive.”

The hearing for Clyde Ezra Turner was held in Pasadena Superior Court as parents outside demanded a grand jury probe of whether school officials ignored warnings that Turner may have behaved inappropriately with some children.

“The truth needs to come out,” said Joyce Gomez, a student’s grandmother.

School district officials confirmed Monday that six weeks before the coach’s recent arrest, Gomez told a dean at Charles Eliot Middle School, where Turner is a truant officer, that Turner inappropriately touched a student’s head.

School board President Lisa Fowler said Dean Michael Fields responded by immediately telling all Eliot truant officers they were forbidden to touch students. “It didn’t warrant any further action,” Fowler said.

Meanwhile, Turner’s attorney, Anthony Willoughby, said his client’s accusers were motivated by revenge against the John Muir High School coach. Willoughby said one teenager had lost his place in some key track events to better athletes, and the other was cut from the track team for failing grades.

Turner, 43, pleaded not guilty last week to three felony counts of child molestation and one misdemeanor involving two members of his track team.

The former national coach of the year was arrested April 27 after the parents of a 15-year-old told school officials he had molested their son at his home April 24 while watching a pornographic videotape. Turner was then released on $100,000 bail.

But bail skyrocketed two days later when he was arrested on new charges of molesting a 16-year-old boy in January.

During Monday’s hearing, Pasadena Police Det. George Vidal told Superior Court Judge Terry Smerling that Turner’s release would make other victims reluctant to come forward.

Smerling responded by reducing Turner’s bail to $100,000 with the provision that he be forbidden to contact minors without their parents present.