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Ex high school coach sentenced following emotional victim statement
By Jordan Cohen
JEFFERSON
Donald McCormack, a former Jefferson High School basketball coach and sports editor of the Ashtabula Star Beacon, was sentenced to six months in the Ashtabula County Jail on Friday for sex offenses against his female players.
McCormack, 52, pleaded no contest in March 2015 as part of a plea bargain in which the counts against him were reduced to attempted child endangering, a felony, and two misdemeanor counts of sexual imposition. The incidents occurred while McCormack was coaching between 1999 and 2006 and serving as the newspaper sports editor. The newspaper fired him in August 2014 after the charges were filed.
Two of his victims were among the courtroom spectators, but only one wanted to speak. The 23-year-old, identified in court only by her initials, wiped her tears as she read from a prepared statement about the molestation McCormack inflicted upon her.
She said it began when she was 13.
“What you did was inexcusable,” she said. “I was oblivious to your manipulation.”
The woman said McCormack’s conviction has not ended her emotional trauma.
“I feel pain where I used to have joy,” she said. “My scars are for the world to see.”
The woman concluded her remarks with a defiant athletic metaphor to her former coach: “The game is over – you lose,” she said.
McCormack never looked at his victim while she spoke and did not offer an apology or expression of remorse. Offered the opportunity by common pleas Judge Marianne Sezon to make a statement, McCormack declined.
“I find this case to be very disturbing,” the judge said to the ex-coach before imposing sentence. “You affected these young women in an awful way.”
In addition to the jail sentence, McCormack must register as a sex offender for 10 years, serve five years’ probation and undergo sex-offender counseling. He is prohibited from having any contact with the victims or from attending any youth athletic or school activities.
McCormack originally had been indicted on six felony offenses and three misdemeanors, many of which purportedly occurred in the early 1990s. Those offenses involved sexual conduct that went beyond improper touching. But Ashtabula County Prosecutor Nicholas Iarocci said the length of time since those crimes purportedly were committed and the changing of laws and penalties would have made conviction difficult.
“There were substantial legal challenges,” he said. “We all wanted to see more time [in jail], but we’ve taken a sexual predator off the streets and away from our gymnasiums.”
Assistant Prosecutor Cecilia Cooper told the court during sentencing that another factor in the plea bargain was to avoid having the women “take the stand and relive their pain.” The prosecutors said the victims agreed with the plea bargain.
Judge Sezon appeared to be moved by what she had heard.
“I can only hope for these bright young women to focus on a bright future,” she said.