Catholic School Hired Sex Offender as Coach

A Catholic high school hired a registered sex offender last year as its boys basketball coach, apparently in violation of state law, according to documents and interviews.

Darryl McDonald, 36, of Sylmar, who took Alemany High in Mission Hills from a winless record to the championship in his first season, was convicted in the late 1980s of having oral sex with a minor.

School officials suspended McDonald pending an investigation after a reporter’s calls Tuesday. Officials at the North Valley YMCA, where McDonald works coaching children, also said he would be suspended after they learned he was on the state’s sex offender database.

McDonald called the conviction an “unfortunate situation” that is being used to ruin his reputation, and referred questions to his attorney.

“Anyone who knows me knows what I’m all about, that I’m not some kind of child molester,” McDonald said. “I’ve been so involved in the community in helping others. You can talk to any kids or parents, and that’s been my track record.”

Jeffrey Brodey, the lawyer who represented him 11 years ago when the charges were filed, said McDonald dated two underage girls when he was in his 20s, and got into trouble when one mother found out and called police.

“It wasn’t a terrible thing and it’s going to ruin his life,” said Brodey, who still represents McDonald. “It’s a real tragedy.”

Court records show McDonald was charged in April 1988 with two counts of statutory rape, two counts of oral sex with a minor and two counts of penetration by a foreign object. That July, two more statutory rape counts were added.

In March 1989, he agreed to a plea bargain and was convicted of one oral sex charge and the rest were dropped, court records show.

McDonald’s lawyer said the deal seemed in his best interest at the time, which preceded mandatory registration for sex offenders. McDonald got four years’ probation.

“At the time, it seemed like the best deal to make this thing go away,” Brodey said.

School and YMCA officials said they did not know about the conviction, and that they would never have hired a known sex offender.

YMCA officials said they sent McDonald’s fingerprints to the Department of Justice in 1994 and were told he did not have a criminal record.

“There’s definitely something funny about this,” said John Medler, executive vice president of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. He said YMCA employees could not reach McDonald on Tuesday, but “we’re going to resolve it as soon as we can get a hold of him.”

Department of Justice spokesman Michael Van Winkle said it is highly unlikely that the department made a mistake.

The Rev. Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said the school had run a criminal background check, “but there doesn’t appear to be a record of that” in the school’s files.

“Based on the information I’ve heard so far, it does appear there’s an element of human error,” Coiro said. “Something seems to be amiss. It seems somewhere along the lines something fell between the cracks.”

Times staff writers Eric Sondheimer, Rob Fernas and Mark Gomez contributed to this story.