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	Suspected Abuser Returned to School, Some Testify Mater Dei's Renowned Basketball Coach Was Warned Not to Let His Fired Assistant Back on Campus, but He Apparently Did By Dave McKibben Los Angeles Times [California] February 9, 2007 http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-materdei9feb09,1,4269427.story?coll=la-headlines-pe-california Mater Dei High School basketball coach Gary McKnight, whose record of success spans a quarter-century, quietly allowed an assistant who'd been fired over an alleged sexual relationship with a student to return to campus, according to court records. McKnight ignored the orders of school officials not to let the former assistant boys' basketball coach, Jeff Andrade, set foot on the Santa Ana campus again, according to depositions in a lawsuit filed by the student. The girl was 15 when the relationship, which Andrade has admitted, began. Patrick Murphy, president of the Roman Catholic school, testified that the basketball coach was "less than truthful" when he first presented a contract to school administrators that paved the way for Andrade's return to the campus, according to the depositions. Years before, McKnight was chastised after he burst into an office where Andrade and the girl were being interviewed by school officials investigating the nature of their relationship. Murphy, who was school principal during the period in question, testified that the coach bellowed, "Don't talk until you get a lawyer!" Murphy also said in his deposition that after McKnight was told that he could be charged with obstruction of justice and placed on administrative leave, the coach apologized for his behavior. Mater Dei, one of the largest parochial schools in the country, has been buffeted by sex abuse scandals in recent years, but its boys' basketball program had remained untouched by scandal and has achieved national renown. In 25 years at the Santa Ana school, McKnight has won more than 700 games, piled up 19 regional titles and sent dozens of players to college programs. A few months ago, school officials presented McKnight with a striking, $18-million athletic complex, featuring a 3,200-seat gymnasium that replaced a 50-year-old facility. The testimony about McKnight comes in depositions of Murphy and Andrade, who was fired as a basketball coach and driver's education teacher in 1997 after Mater Dei officials suspected he had had a long-running sexual relationship with the student. Police investigated in 1997, but no charges were filed. McKnight, his attorney, Mater Dei administrators and officials for the Diocese of Orange, which oversees the school, declined to comment. The former student sued McKnight, Mater Dei and Andrade in 2005, saying Andrade had molested her for 18 months. Referred to as Jane C.R. Doe in the suit, she is seeking an unspecified amount on grounds of emotional distress. Andrade, 44, is accused in the suit of having sex with the student, possibly hundreds of times, in such places as McKnight's office, the gymnasium, classrooms, his house and several times in a Las Vegas hotel room when the boys' basketball team was there for a tournament. In his deposition, Andrade admitted having sex with the student and that he returned to campus several times after his firing, as late as 2000 or 2001, as part of his position with Varsity Gold. The company raises money for school athletic programs and booster groups throughout the U.S. and Canada by selling discount books for restaurants and movie theaters. Andrade testified that his business contact was McKnight, who had coached Andrade at Ocean View High School in Huntington Beach in the late 1970s, and that Varsity Gold had a contract with the school. Andrade said he conducted business with McKnight in the coach's office. Murphy testified that he had told McKnight that "Jeff Andrade was not to be on our campus" and said he was "disappointed" upon learning specifics of Andrade's business relationship with Mater Dei from Andrade's deposition. He also testified that McKnight had presented Andrade's contact to the school in a "less than truthful manner," telling Murphy that the school had a relationship with Varsity Gold but not with Andrade. When school officials initially learned of Andrade's reappearance on campus a few years after he was fired, Murphy said, McKnight was given oral and written reprimands, stipulating that "the school was to do no more business with any company connected with Mr. Andrade." Asked by John Manly, Doe's attorney, if he considered firing McKnight, Murphy testified, "No. There's no grounds." Murphy was also asked if it was a good decision to do business with a company employing Andrade. "Hindsight being 20/20, probably not," he said. Police and court records show that Mater Dei officials conducted two investigations into allegations that Andrade was involved in a sexual relationship with a student. The first took place in March 1996, during Doe's junior year, after a Mater Dei teacher intercepted a note between students referring to suspected sexual involvement between a junior and Andrade. School officials questioned Andrade and Doe together, but both denied such a relationship. Murphy testified that McKnight, then the Mater Dei boys' athletic director, interrupted the second school investigation a year later. As Assistant Principal Richard Rodgers interviewed Andrade and Doe in an off-campus building, Murphy said McKnight entered the room and yelled at Andrade, "Don't talk until you get a lawyer!" Murphy said he called McKnight into his office and scolded him, saying, " 'This is a serious matter. It could involve a criminal investigation. You could be held in obstruction of justice.' I said, 'If you can't stay out of it, them I'm going to place you on administrative leave.' " Murphy said McKnight apologized the next day: "He'd gone home and told his wife what had happened and she told him what an idiot he was." The police report revealed that Andrade's relationship with Doe might have been known to some in McKnight's inner circle. Another boys' basketball assistant coach, Jason Quinn, said he had become concerned that Andrade and Doe might be having an inappropriate relationship. He told police he had seen Andrade and Doe talk outside class and in the weight room and that he warned Andrade to be careful, "as people might get the wrong idea." McKnight is scheduled to be deposed Monday, said Manly, the plaintiff's lawyer. Mater Dei has been hit with a number of sexual misconduct lawsuits in recent years. Several former students filed suits in 2002 and 2003, saying they were sexually abused by high school personnel, including its popular former principal, Mgsr. Michael Harris. Those suits were settled in 2004 as part of a $100-million payout to 87 alleged sexual abuse victims. Andrade's case is one of two lawsuits filed since the settlement, alleging sexual abuse of female students by male teachers at Mater Dei in the late 1990s. McKnight's program, however, had never been drawn into the controversies, and officials with the Southern Section of the California Interscholastic Federation — the governing body for high school athletics — said there had been no complaints against McKnight or the Mater Dei program. E-mail: david.mckibben@latimes.com
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