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Jury trial moved to April for former Jefferson coach accused of sexual misconduct with former players
By Ed Runyan
JEFFERSON
A jury trial scheduled to begin today in Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court for former Ashtabula Star Beacon sports editor and former high school coach Donald McCormack has been reset to April 5.
McCormack, 51, of Erie Street is charged with single felony counts of gross sexual imposition and endangering children and three felony counts of sexual battery. He also faces two misdemeanor charges of sexual imposition. He’s accused of sexual misconduct involving several former female basketball players he coached while assistant basketball coach at Jefferson Area High School around 1991 and around 1999. The girls were 16 or 17 years old.
The newspaper fired McCormack after he was charged in August. The school district announced Aug. 19 that McCormack had resigned his supplemental coaching contract with the district June 9.
The judge in McCormack’s case, Marianne Sezon, recently ruled against McCormack’s request to suppress the recorded interview he gave to police Aug. 18 at his home but ordered some opinions expressed by detectives to be removed from the recording if it is played in court.
For example, the judge said opinions expressed regarding the truthfulness of some of the witnesses in the case will be removed, the judge said.
In the interview, which lasted about 21/2 hours, McCormack admitted that some of his relationships with female players were “inappropriate” and said he was in love with one former player who he’s accused of sexually assaulting in 1991.
He took her on a trip to Cincinnati and provided $1,800 to her family for moving expenses so she could move to Jefferson and play basketball there.
He also told the detectives that two girls who alleged he touched their buttocks one night at a party at which he and other adults were drinking alcohol are probably telling the truth, but he doesn’t know because of the amount of drinking he did.
He also, however, denied that any of his relationships with the girls involved sexual touching or sexual conduct, as several of the girls alleged.