BishopAccountability.org
	Former Nativity BVM Athletic Coach Reports to County Prison By Peter E. Bortner The Republican & Herald [Pennsylvania] May 22, 2007 http://www.republicanherald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=18371160&BRD=2626&PAG=461&dept_id=532624&rfi=6 Daniel M. Shields Jr. ceased to be a free man at 9 a.m. Monday. "He did report this morning" to Schuylkill County Prison, District Attorney James P. Goodman said of Shields, 62, of 30 Bryn Mawr Ave., Pottsville. The longtime high school football and track coach admitted videotaping female athletes in the locker room at Nativity BVM High School and indecently assaulting one of them. Shields walked into prison a week after county Judge D. Michael Stine imposed an 18- to 48-month state prison term. He will stay in the county prison several days until the state Department of Corrections informs the county they can process him at State Correctional Institution/Camp Hill, Warden Eugene Berdanier said. "We’ve got him scheduled to go in the next several days," Sheriff Francis V. McAndrew said. "The exact date I can’t divulge for security purposes." McAndrew said he received on Monday all the paperwork necessary for Shields’ transportation to SCI/Camp Hill, the state prison that handles processing and assignment of all state prison inmates from Schuylkill County. Pottsville police charged Shields with assaulting a female track team member at various times, including in his East Norwegian Township home and on a training table at school, and videotaped girls’ track team members in the locker room from November 2004 through May 2005. Shields pleaded guilty March 1 to five counts of invasion of privacy, four of sexual abuse of children, two of indecent assault and one of corruption of minors. At the end of a 2½-hour hearing May 14, Stine also sentenced Shields to register as a sex offender under Megan’s Law for 10 years, submit a DNA sample to law enforcement authorities and pay costs and a $250 fine. Shields started his prison term with the normal lockdown procedure all inmates at the county prison undergo, Berdanier said. That includes 48 to 72 hours of observation and processing without outside contact, according to Berdanier. "He’ll be here until the transportation can be coordinated with the sheriff and the Department of Corrections in Camp Hill," Berdanier said. Berdanier said the state prison to which Shields is sent will depend at least in part on the classification he receives after the processing. The actual prison assignment is made by the Department of Corrections, Goodman said. Shields’ arrest in August 2005 ended one of the longest coaching careers in Schuylkill County scholastic sports history. A teacher for 40 years, Shields had been the boys’ track coach for 35 years at Nativity BVM, the school’s girls’ track coach since 1994 and its football coach for 27 years. He was an assistant coach for Pottsville Area High School’s football team for two years and served as offensive coordinator for Blue Mountain High School’s football team for five years before being fired after his arrest.
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