Ex-coach Vindicated in High School Sexual Hazing Case

By Kale Williams
SFGate
March 12, 2015

http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/Ex-coach-vindicated-in-high-school-sexual-hazing-6131571.php

St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School, Vallejo, CA

A former high school football coach has been vindicated and awarded a hefty sum in a wrongful-termination suit after he was fired for reporting players’ sexual hazing, then further defamed by the diocese that runs the Catholic school, his lawyers said.

After a two-week trial, a Sacramento Superior Court jury found in favor of Chris Cerbone on all claims Thursday and awarded him $4 million for wrongful termination from St. Patrick-St. Vincent High School in Vallejo. The jury also concluded that the Roman Catholic Diocese of Sacramento, which runs the school, had falsely accused Cerbone of allowing the abuse to occur, said David Lowe, one of Cerbone’s attorneys.

Cerbone, a 52-year-old former New York State Police officer from Petaluma, was hired as head football coach at St. Patrick-St. Vincent in August 2013. In December, Cerbone heard reports that some varsity players had engaged in hazing in which they would “stick their naked buttocks in the face of the freshmen or slap their penises on the freshmen’s faces,” the suit said.

Cerbone said he immediately contacted Solano County Child Protective Services officials, who told them that the matter didn’t fall in their jurisdiction because it didn’t involve an adult and child, the suit said. Cerbone then met with principal Mary Ellen Ryan, gave her a letter outlining the allegations and said he believed this was a criminal matter, the suit said.