Pasadena Track Coach Convicted of Molesting Teenager on Team

A nationally acclaimed track coach from Pasadena was found guilty Thursday of molesting a 15-year-old track team member at the coach’s apartment last year.

After deliberating two days, a jury convicted Clyde Ezra Turner, 44, on two felony counts--committing a lewd act upon a child and showing pornography to a minor with intent to arouse.

The jury deadlocked on two counts involving a second alleged victim.

Turner, who was a coach at John Muir High School when the crimes were committed, could face more than three years in state prison.

Dressed in a sports coat with his hair pulled tight in a ponytail, Turner sat silently, blinking slowly and rocking back and forth in his chair while the court clerk read the verdict.

His attorney asked that Turner be released on bail pending his sentencing. The lawyer noted that the wife of Pasadena Councilman Chris Holden was released last week after pleading no contest to having sexual intercourse with her 15-year-old male baby-sitter.

But a prosecutor argued that Turner posed a flight risk because he was offered a job coaching track in Saudi Arabia.

Judge Mary Thornton House denied bail.

Attorneys will meet Wednesday to discuss a possible retrial on the two counts upon which the jury could not reach a verdict. The jurors voted 10 to 2 for acquittal on both those charges.

“I wish he was convicted on all four counts,” Brenda Ellis, one of the victim’s aunts, said outside the Pasadena courtroom.

“This has been devastating for my nephew,” she said. “We just hope he’ll adjust and get back to his normal life, the life of a teenage boy. He lost a lot of innocence.”

The youth testified that he watched a pornographic video in the coach’s bedroom in April 1998 with his pants down. The boy said that Turner came up from behind and made a thrusting motion, like a sex act. He told his mother about the incident, and she notified police.

Another student testified that he saw a pornographic cable program in late 1997 while sitting on Turner’s bed. The student said the coach had twice pushed him down on the bed.

During the seven-day trial, jurors also heard from three former students who alleged that Turner molested them more than 15 years ago. Deputy Dist. Atty. Amy Suehiro told jurors Turner was a “parent’s worst nightmare,” who had preyed on slightly built boys over the last 19 years.

She convinced the judge to allow the testimony of the three former students under a controversial 1996 law that allows prosecutors to use such material to show that a defendant is predisposed to commit sex crimes. Turner was never charged or arrested for those previous allegations.

The law, written by U.S. Rep. James E. Rogan (R-Glendale) when he was a state assemblyman, was recently upheld in an appellate court and is now before the California Supreme Court.

Turner’s attorney, W. Anthony Willoughby, said his client’s due-process rights were violated by the testimony of one alleged victim, whose statements changed since he first spoke to detectives in 1983.

Willoughby said he will appeal the case, pending the Supreme Court’s decision, and will file a motion for prosecutorial misconduct because, he said, Suehiro emphasized the alleged victim’s testimony in her closing argument.

“It’s inherently unreliable to have people testify to something that happened 19 or 20 years ago,” said Willoughby. “I think the Supreme Court will rule it unconstitutional because it violates the defendant’s rights to due process.”

Turner built one of the nation’s premier boys track teams, winning five state championships and never losing a dual meet. He was once named national coach of the year, and has been a mentor to hundreds of athletes in the economically deprived neighborhoods in northwest Pasadena.

Turner did not take the stand during his trial.

He allegedly told police that he invited the 15-year-old to his home and admitted that the boy watched the tape. According to a police report, the defendant said “he might have rubbed up against the victim a couple of times.”

Relatives of the victim said they were dumbfounded by Turner’s actions.

“He knows the entire family,” said the victim’s uncle, who asked that his name be withheld. “I grew up with him. The victim’s father was supportive of the team, and gave kids rides to practice.

“This is a total betrayal.”

The uncle also blamed the school district for what he called a cover-up.

School district officials maintained initially that there had been no prior allegations against the coach. But a confidential school district memorandum entered into evidence showed that the coach had been reprimanded for touching one student’s buttocks in 1983, and was told not to have students at his home.

“Clyde Turner is a great athletic coach,” said Willis Meeks, the victim’s grandfather. “But we shouldn’t sacrifice our children for a great athletic program.”