Saturday, Jan 27, 2018 at 3:00 PM
David Panian - Daily Telegram News Editor - @lenaweepanian
ADRIAN — Michigan State Police are investigating a claim that a current Toledo-area school board member had a sexual relationship with a student when he was a teacher and coach in Addison about 30 years ago.
Patrick Hickey was a teacher and girls’ basketball coach at Addison High School from 1986-90, and the allegations are from that time period, 1st Lt. Tony Cuevas, commander of the state police post in Monroe, said in an email.
“We were contacted by a female, who was a student and played on the girls’ basketball team, who advised us that she and Mr. Hickey had a sexual relationship that started when she was 15 years old,” Cuevas said in the email.
Cuevas said he could not provide more details about the allegations.
He asked that anyone who has information about the case contact Detective Sgt. Larry Rothman of the Monroe post at 734-242-3500.
Assistant Lenawee County Prosecutor Angie Borders said an investigation into Hickey and his relationship with the student began in 2016 after someone who is not the victim contacted the state police. The alleged victim at that time did not want to participate in the investigation.
“That has changed,” Borders said.
She said the investigation is ongoing and she has not received the results of it to decide if Hickey will be charged with a crime.
The statute of limitations on filing charges is not an issue, Borders said, because of the nature of the alleged offense and a provision in state law regarding defendants who live out of state.
Borders said she hopes people interested in the case allow the investigation to be completed fairly.
“This is not about one Ohio district,” she said. “It’s about one victim.”
Controversy has followed Hickey in recent years at the Washington Local Schools in suburban Toledo.
He was superintendent of that district until December 2015, according to Toledo media reports, when he resigned before the school board could consider a resolution following an investigation into allegations against him, including that he left Addison after accusations of an inappropriate relationship with a student arose by a law firm hired by the board. There also were allegations of inappropriate contact with students and staff and misappropriation of funds by Hickey at the Washington Local district.
Hickey has denied those accusations.
He was elected in November to the Washington Local board of education.
His separation agreement from Washington Local bans him from school district property except for activities involving his children. The board is meeting at an American Legion post to accommodate that ban, according to Toledo news reports.
Hickey resigned from the Addison schools in November 1990, according to a two-page report written at the time by Jeffrey Kersh, who was Addison’s superintendent then. The Daily Telegram obtained the report through a Freedom of Information Act request. The report says there was an investigation into an written accusation by a mother of a girls’ basketball player who claimed to have seen Hickey after a basketball game in a “country cemetery” with a girls’ basketball player. The report said there had been rumors circulating about Hickey and the student for “about one year.”
The report does not say if the girl who is alleged to have been seen with Hickey is the daughter of the woman who sent the written allegation to the district.
During the investigation of that allegation, a graduated female basketball player told the district she wanted to make a statement about her relationship with Hickey while she was a student. The report said there also had been rumors about that student and Hickey but nothing was substantiated.
“About one hour after Mr. Hickey was told about the former student (sic) willingness to make a statement, he resigned,” the report says. “He left the school grounds even before the end of the school day.”
The report says a union representative asked the district for information on Hickey’s resignation. Kersh wrote he was willing to cooperate, but then the union representative told him Hickey had declined representation with regard to his resignation.
The report ends with the statement “the investigation was immediately halted.”
Kersh could not be reached for comment.
Original article was published on Jan 27, 2018 at lenconnect.com. With JavaScript disabled, no content is displayed. That website his bloated.
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