Probation Given for Hiding Sex Offense
A former high school coach who submitted false fingerprints for an employment background check to hide his past as a sex offender was sentenced Friday to five years’ probation, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
Darryl McDonald, a Sylmar man who was 36 when he pleaded guilty in December, was also ordered by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Shari Kreisler Silver to perform 250 hours of community service.
McDonald was a popular coach who led the Alemany High School basketball team to league championship, but he was fired last summer after school officials learned he had been convicted in 1989 of oral copulation with a minor. His lawyer had said the incident involved McDonald’s dating teenage girls while in his 20s.
Despite the conviction, which required McDonald to register as a sex offender, he was subsequently hired by both the North Valley YMCA and Alemany after submitting a friend’s fingerprints as his own.
McDonald is required to be truthful about his background as a sex offender, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert DeCarteret, who added that he believed the sentencing was proper.
Before McDonald’s sentencing, DeCarteret interviewed people at Alemany High and found that “they had nothing but nice things to say about him.”
McDonald was facing 16 months in prison for his guilty plea.
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