FLORIDA
Tampa Bay Times
Laura C. Morel, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
A wrestling coach arrested Tuesday on charges that he recently hit two students was accused of stripping a Pinellas Park High student naked in 1998 after he caught the boy smoking a cigarette, according to records.
Teachers grew concerned when the student began missing classes around Thanksgiving. When confronted, the student said he felt uncomfortable seeing Scott Stern, a wrestling team volunteer, at school.
According to police records, the boy said that after Stern caught him smoking a cigarette in a car, Stern asked him to come into the wrestling room, where he forced him to strip naked while balancing a ruler on his head.
The Pinellas Park Police Department forwarded their investigation to the State Attorney’s Office in 1999, but prosecutors declined to file a child abuse charge against Stern.
Stern, who worked at Clearwater Central Catholic High School for 12 years, currently faces two counts of battery.
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