High School, YMCA Probe Hiring of Sex Offender

Officials scrambled Wednesday to determine how a convicted sex offender slipped through legally required criminal background checks and was allowed to coach children at a Catholic high school and a YMCA in the San Fernando Valley.

YMCA officials said Darryl McDonald, 36, of Sylmar lied on his 1994 employment application, denying that he had ever been convicted of a felony.

His fingerprints were sent to the state Department of Justice for a background check, which revealed no criminal record, a spokesman said. Officials from the Department of Justice and the YMCA each suggested the other agency erred in handling the fingerprints.

McDonald was hired to work with children by the YMCA and Alemany High School, a private Catholic school in Mission Hills, and allowed to volunteer at San Fernando High despite being a registered sex offender.

Records show he was convicted of having oral sex with a minor in 1989, which his lawyer said was the result of dating teenage girls when he was in his early 20s and being turned in by an upset parent. McDonald also was convicted in 1995 for assaulting his girlfriend, whom he has since married.

McDonald, a popular coach who took the Alemany team from last place to first in one season, was suspended Tuesday by the YMCA and the school.

Department of Justice spokesman Michael Van Winkle said it is virtually impossible that agency employees would misidentify a fingerprint.

Although McDonald gave the YMCA a birth date that differed slightly from his criminal record and driver’s license, Van Winkle said that should not have been enough to skirt the system. He confirmed that the system contains McDonald’s correct fingerprints and criminal record, and suggested the prints submitted by the YMCA may have come from someone else.

Meanwhile, Larry Rosen, president and chief executive of the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles, said the prints sent to the state in fact belonged to McDonald. He suggested it was the Department of Justice that made a mistake.

“Your fingerprints are your fingerprints and you still have the question of why the fingerprints didn’t match up as they should,” said Rosen.

Attorney Jeffrey Brodey said McDonald will not agree to be fingerprinted again, and that his client would not comment on whether he purposely hid his past from his employers.

At Alemany High, a source speaking on the condition of anonymity said the school probably neglected to check McDonald’s criminal record.

Alemany administrators were attempting Wednesday to determine how McDonald was hired, said the Rev. Gregory Coiro, spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Officials say failure to conduct a background check is a violation of state law, which since 1997 has required all schools to run criminal background checks for all employees through fingerprint records in the Department of Justice. Schools are also prohibited from hiring those convicted of sex, drug and violent crimes.