By Maryann Spoto
The Star-Ledger
January 22, 2010
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/01/baseball_coach_for_st_rose_hig.html
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| Former St. Rose High School baseball coach Bartholomew McInerney leaves the courtroom of Anthony Mellaci Jr., at Monmouth County Superior Court, after being convicted of 10 counts of sexual misconduct. Photo by Noah K. Murray |
BELMAR -- Rejecting Bartholomew McInerney’s claims he had the best interests of his former players at heart, a jury in Monmouth County convicted the former Belmar baseball coach today on 10 counts charging him with offering the boys money in exchange for text messages about their sexual experiences.
The verdict, on the second day of jury deliberations, left McInerney’s relatives stunned. About a half-dozen of them sat in the gallery of the Freehold courtroom, looks of disbelief on their faces as the verdicts were announced. All refused to comment afterward. Parents of McInerney’s victims were elated and hugged each other afterward.
Dressed in a dark gray suit and blue shirt, McInerney, the longtime baseball coach at St. Rose High School, appeared stoic as the verdict was announced, dipping his head occasionally as the forewoman announced each finding.
"We are disappointed ...," his attorney, Charles Uliano, said after court. "Bart McInerney would never intentionally harm anyone, especially the players he coached and cared about."
The nine-man, three-woman jury, none of whom spoke to reporters, acquitted McInerney on one charge of child endangerment.
Jackie Clark, the mother of one of McInerney’s alleged victims, called the ex-coach "calculating and manipulative" and accused him of preying on the players. She said he deliberately chose boys he knew followed rules, who wanted to please him and who needed money.
Her son, Andrew Clark, 18, was included as one of 13 alleged victims in the original indictment. However, he was struck and killed by a train in 2008, a death the Monmouth County medical examiner ruled a suicide.
The charge involving Clark was dropped before the trial; another charge was dismissed during the trial.
"I am elated that he got 10 of the charges," Jackie Clark said outside the courthouse in Freehold. "He will finally pay for what he has done for years to these kids.
"I’ll never get my son back, but it’s closure," she said, tears streaming down her face.
During the three-week trial before Superior Court Judge Anthony Mellaci Jr., 12 of the victims testified McInerney questioned them about intimate details of their sexual experiences. All but one said he offered them money in exchange for coded text messages about their masturbation habits.
The jury acquitted McInerney of the charge related to the player who said he wasn’t offered money.
Assistant Monmouth County Prosecutor Peter Boser argued that McInerney, 43, of Spring Lake Heights, of deriving sexual gratification from the text messages, which included information on how long the act took and how it felt. Several of the victims testified they fabricated the contents of the texts just to get the money, which they said ranged from $1 to $5 per message.
On the witness stand over two days, McInerney insisted he did not pay the teens to masturbate or to send text messages about the experiences. Rather, he said, he offered money to them to abstain from sex with their girlfriends and told them they could achieve that goal by masturbating often.
Convicted of 10 counts of child endangerment, McInerney faces up to 10 years in prison on each offense when he is sentenced on April 23.
McInerney was allowed to remain free on $200,000 bail until then, but is prohibited from leaving New Jersey and from having unsupervised contact with anyone under 18.
One of 11 children, McInerney, who attended St. Rose, was baseball coach at the Catholic high school for 13 years. His brother, Tim McInerney, coaches soccer at the school and his father, a former physical education teacher and coach at the school, has a building named for him there.
Monmouth County Prosecutor Luis Valentin credited the former players and another former student for testifying about "highly sensitive and private" subjects.
"Ultimately, coaches, like teachers, bear an enormous responsibility to care and protect those individuals that they have assumed a legal responsibility for," he said. "... The jury clearly believed that this coach, that this defendant, violated that solemn obligation of duty of care,’’ he said.
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