You can even become President of France if you try hard enough...

I agree, from what's been said there's no reason to think the guy is a pedophile who is into kids.

Sphere has two boys. Nothing here suggests he’s into boys.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

We kind of have similar situation that has played out locally. Our local High School consistently has one of the best running programs in the state, pretty much wins cross country and track state titles for boys and girls most years, or come close. The coach of the HS team apparently had a relationship with one of the girls after she graduated HS. He's probably in his 40's now. I think this was a few years ago. Anyway some of the parents have it out for him because of that.

Could easily see how the girl becomes disenchanted and goes back and says he was grooming her from the get-go, even if nothing happened until later on.

Or just go on over to the tri forum and mention ‘Doc’.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

The disciplinary action was taken after the findings of the investigation were revealed, not based exclusively on the allegations by the ex-wife/former student. Those findings were not contested. It's pretty hard to draw the conclusion that those were non-falsifiable claims, given that several reported incidents occurred in front of other students. I'm guessing there was corroboration at some point in the investigation.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

Sorry, didn't mean to imply what I said had anything to do with your case in particular.

This.

However, how many times has he been married? Did (possible) previous wives have children?
Pedophiles target vulnerable families (single parent, works a lot, pays a lot for babysitting and could really use a break)

Similar thing with my old rowing coach as well. When he was coaching us at university, he was ~40 and happily married with kids. 10 years later there were some high profile celebrity cases of pedophilia/grooming in the UK (google Jimmy Savile...), police launched a huge investigation and encouraged people to come forward. A woman came forward with whom he had had a relationship when she was a teenager at school and he'd been the school rowing coach, he was in his mid-20s at the time. Judge described the relationship as "entirely consensual but entirely inappropriate" and he went to prison for 2 years. Finished his career since he worked in education. I believe his wife has stuck with him but imagine it's made a pretty big mess of his private life as well.

It's a difficult quandary. I knew this guy extremely well over a period of 5 years during which time I was club captain and president so I had a lot of dealings with him. Lots of attractive 18 and 19 year old girls in the club and plenty of social occasions with alcohol, and I never saw or heard even a hint of leery or inappropriate behaviour at the time, and nothing has come out since the conviction which I'm sure it would have. I genuinely believe this was a one-off mistake (albeit a big one), that he's no threat to anybody, and the punishment seems pretty harsh. That said, teachers and coaches of juniors have a very serious responsibility to their students and there needs to be sufficient deterrent to this kind of behaviour.

I thought that as well, which would have made for even more drama.

I'm trying to piece together what he did, and it's not entirely clear. But it sounds like he was a teacher who had sex with a high school age student who was around 10 years younger, eventually married her, and then got divorced. Is that somewhat correct?

If that's what happened, then it's serious, but at the same time, it's not pedophilia. And it's not necessarily reason to be concerned about him being around the grandchildren.

It sounds more like a trust issue than anything. They never disclosed it to you. They could have thought that it was none of you business and that disclosure would have caused an overreaction. That might be a legitimate explanation, but it might not.

I have a registered sex offender cousin -- sexual contact with very young children. My aunt and uncle brought him to all kinds of family functions without disclosing it. We were pissed and will no longer attend anything if he's there, regardless of how well supervised all the kids are. But his crime was a little bit different than statutory rape where the two eventually married.

Correct. Babysitter since 9th grade, apparent grooming, then sex when she was, I think, legal age. Murky legal territory, in other words.


That's entirely the problem, now. Mrs sphere reminded me of something I'd totally forgotten about. During their last visit, friends stopped by to drop off our 8yo son's friend. Throughout the course of conversation (at which I was not present), he offered to tutor their teenage daughter in volleyball (he was a coach, she's an active player) in the field near our home while the parents went shopping. Mrs sphere privately vouched for him to her mother who was obviously concerned about her daughter spending time alone with a man she just met. So now, it's pretty much my obligation to contact the parents to make sure nothing out of the ordinary occurred. I have no choice in that matter.

And, of course, this could have been avoided had he not offered, or if we had been aware of that history and shut it down. But neither he, nor my mother, thought it relevant to the situation, or to tell us anything about it, and allowed us to get involved, and our friend's children, involved, regardless of whether or not anything may have occurred.

Who in their right minds makes decisions like this? I'm getting closer and closer to the point where cutting off access seems to be the only sensible option.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

My aunt and uncle would be dead to me if they pulled that nonsense. Call me callous, but family doesn't mean jack shit once those lines are crossed. It sucks for his parents, but that's their burden to bear, if they choose to bear it.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

spudone wrote:

I think there would be zero unsupervised visits with the kids. But that's just me. I don't see a reason to completely cut off contact with them, but I wouldn't for one second believe he's being 100% straight with you, either.

If this woman was a family friend, would you let your young daughters be near her?

http://bangordailynews.com/...-assault-on-student/

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

Ok. I'll take the worst son award and raise my hand on this one. I've done that to verify my parent's address after they moved to a new house. I had never lived there and never thought to write it down. Didn't want to let them know I didn't know.
I've even gone as far as using state voting records to verify my mom's birthday....my excuse here is that she once gave me a calendar that had family birthdays on it and she put the wrong day for herself. For a few years it caused me to question whether I had the right birthday.

My mother and sister have had a very rocky relationship (there's a handful of personality disorders between the two) and have just recently reconciled, somewhat, and my sister is planning a wedding for August of next year. I have no reason to believe she didn't stumble across it through a google search.

Not that it matters one way or the other.

All three of us--brother, sister, and I--have communicated with her through email or direct conversation. Not going well. She's all in on his story, that it's all a malicious plot that his ex hatched to win a custody battle, never mind the verifiable timeline of events and the independent investigation that apparently affirmed those claims. We're at a point where it's hard to see anyone having a relationship with them as a couple, and I'm not sure how you recover from this from a trust perspective even at the personal level. He's never stepping foot in any of our homes again, in part because of the history, and in part because he's not (IMO) coming clean about it, and even if he's telling the truth, he's lost the benefit of the doubt by hiding it. As has she.

She's now in a position where her family relations are shattered, probably irreparably, and what she has left is more likely than not based on a lie, and deep down, she may understand that. So the options are, end the happiest marriage she's ever had (legitimately) and try to salvage her family, or preserve the marriage based on a lie and lose us. It's a really fucking bad place to be.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I hate those links where you have to do a little survey before you can read the story

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They constantly try to escape from the darkness outside and within
Dreaming of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good T.S. Eliot

I'm sure it's all just a big misunderstanding.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I remain confused as to what you guys think he's going to do -- you think he's going to form a relationship with one of your teenage children and then marry her when she becomes of age? Because that's what he did. I clearly don't care but it seems like you came here for advice. I continue to think you are over-reacting to something that happened once, a long time ago, and isn't all that bad to begin with.

If the allegations are true--have you read the article?--that's quite a whitewashing of events. Grooming a teen girl for sex from the age of 14, while she's your student and babysitter, isn't what I'd describe as "forming a relationship."



The problem, obviously, is that parents should retain the right to decide who gets to participate and contribute in their children's lives, to function as loved ones (in this case, Grandfather), role models, mentors, etc. No one has the right to take documented events like those, which speak to directly to character and judgment, and sweep them under a rug because they're invested in his innocence, contrary to all evidence. That was denied us by my mother, primarily, who is obligated to respect that prerogative in my home, and with my family.

This is pretty straight forward, from where I sit, and it has nothing to do with whether I believe he's a physical risk to my children.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W

I am pretty sure that he will marry one of your sons.

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How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

It's been over two months since we've talked. She sent a very sincere apology email soon after this went down, and seems to understand now why it's a big deal. But she's all in with her new husband, and still believes every last word of his version of events, as expected.

I told her I'm not looking to interfere in her marriage or telling her to choose her family or her husband, but that I wouldn't let her marriage affect my family in any capacity. He won't be accompanying her on visits, sending gifts, talking by phone, or engaging them in any capacity. She's welcome to continue visiting, calling, sending gifts, etc. just as before so long as that condition is respected. Her response didn't include any explicit agreements to that condition, only that she "has to process" my letter.

Independently, both of my siblings arrived at the same position, though my sister in law will be a harder sell.

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The devil made me do it the first time, second time I done it on my own - W