SACRAMENTIO (CA)
Sacramento Bee
March 23, 2018
By Cynthia Hubert
She was a Catholic high school girl who had yet to have her first kiss.
When her softball coach began texting her late at night, showering her with compliments and telling her she was special, it was easy for Bailey Boone to forget that he was 54 years old and she was just 16.
“I thought we had a great love and the age didn’t matter, and no one could possibly understand,” Boone, now 21, said of the man she knew as Coach Mike.
In reality, Michael Martis was “grooming” her to become his sexual partner, according to a lawsuit Boone has filed against St. Francis Catholic High School and the Sacramento Catholic Diocese. The school and diocese, the lawsuit alleges, should have known that Martis was a predator, and failed to take steps to protect Boone and other students when he was a softball coach from 2010 through 2014.
St. Francis president Theresa Rodgers said Martis passed a background check and that his behavior raised no “red flags” among administrators, teachers or coaches. Martis was a trusted member of the community and did business with Boone’s mother. He had keys to St. Francis’ sports facilities and was allowed to communicate with students privately, give one-on-one lessons and drive students in his car to games away from the school’s East Sacramento campus.
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