Police Drop Investigation of Ex-Ventura High Coach : Inquiry: Detectives find no recent criminal evidence against Dale Hahn, accused of having sex with students.

By MAIA DAVIS

April 6, 1994 12 AM PT

SPECIAL TO THE TIMES

Ventura police on Tuesday dropped their investigation of a former Ventura High School coach accused of having sex with students, saying detectives have been unable to find evidence of recent criminal activity, authorities said.

But the Ventura school district is pursuing its case to fire former swim coach Dale Hahn based on allegations that he engaged in immoral conduct with students.

Police began their investigation in December after the school district put Hahn on paid leave. The 45-year-old Hahn, who taught chemistry and coached the swim and water polo teams at Ventura High since 1973, was suspended without pay in January.

Two former Ventura High students have told school officials that they had sexual relations with Hahn while they were at the high school in the 1970s and 1980s. But the incidents they describe fall outside the three-year statute of limitations for felony sexual assaults, Detective Sgt. Bob Anderson said.

“The facts don’t substantiate a criminal arrest,” Anderson said. “We are not anticipating any charges being filed or any arrests.”

In addition to their investigation of the old allegations, Ventura police were trying to verify statements by a male student currently at Ventura High to school officials that one of his female friends had sex with Hahn this school year.

But the boy refused to name the girl and detectives found no proof to support the student’s allegations, Anderson said.

“We have not substantiated that that girl exists,” he said.

Hahn could not be reached for comment, but his attorney, Richard Schwab, said he hopes the district will now decide against trying to fire Hahn.

“I think it speaks to what we have said all along, that what has been alleged against him has been basically all rumor, innuendo, gossip, vicious talk,” Schwab said. “I’m very confident that the district now having this information will seriously reconsider its decision.”

Schwab said the alleged incidents of Hahn having sex with former students not only fall outside the three-year criminal statute of limitations, but also the limit set by the state in cases against public school educators.

State law forbids districts from firing teachers for incidents that occurred more than four years earlier.

One former Ventura High student has told school officials she had an ongoing sexual relationship with Hahn for a nine-month period in the mid-1970s. Another student has said that she slept with Hahn in the fall of 1988.

Supt. Joseph Spirito and other district officials said they are continuing to prepare a case to fire Hahn. That case will be decided by a state administrative panel at a hearing in Ventura in July.

While police must find evidence of sexual contact to bring charges of sexual assault, school officials said, the district needs to prove only that the teacher said or did things that fit the state education code’s definition of immoral conduct.

Immoral conduct can include such activities as a teacher leering at a student or asking a student out on a date, school attorney Mary Jo McGrath said. Various female students have alleged that Hahn had leered at them or asked them out within the past few years, she said.

In addition to showing immoral conduct within the past four years, McGrath said she also hopes to persuade the administrative panel to consider the older allegations about Hahn having sex with students.

Showing that a person is a criminal is very different from proving that a teacher is unfit, school officials said.

“There’s a huge difference between what the criminal burden of proof is and the criminal law and what the school district has a right to expect of teachers,” said McGrath. “I think parents clearly want to have more than simply not to have criminals teaching their kids.”

Spirito said it would have bolstered the district’s case against Hahn if the police had brought charges.

“Obviously, it would been more of a case for us,” Spirito said. “But, on the other hand, I’ve got a responsibility to the boys and girls of this community and they’re my clients. We have to look at other things that the police perhaps don’t consider to be criminal.”