Springfield teacher told to quit touching students years before conviction, prosecutor says

A Parkview High School basketball coach continued teaching in Springfield schools for nearly two decades despite multiple complaints of inappropriate behavior, according to a Greene County prosecutor.

The prosecutor said in court that Ronnie White was "essentially being protected by his employers," who gave little credence to at least four complaints of White behaving inappropriately between 1993 and 2008.

At one point, White was told to stop physically touching students, said Nathan Chapman, a first assistant prosecutor.

These and other revelations were made public Monday, six years after White retired from Springfield Public Schools.

It wasn't until a woman came forward to police about the sexual abuse she experienced as a 14-year-old student in the early '90s that criminal charges were filed against White last year.

Chapman said school records showed that in 1993 — the final year White was abusing the woman who recently came forward to police — a different girl complained that White was behaving inappropriately. Chapman said school administrators made the girl take a polygraph test.

Other complaints of inappropriate behavior by White were made in 2002, 2007 and 2008, Chapman said.

A Springfield Public Schools spokeswoman said the district would not release those complaints or acknowledge that they exist.

Spokeswoman Teresa Bledsoe explained that such records are a personnel matter and, subsequently, closed to the public. She declined to comment further until seeing a transcript of what was said in court and speaking with the superintendent.

Starting in 1984, White taught physical education, health, driver's education and other subjects at six different Springfield public schools before retiring in 2010, according to Bledsoe. He was Parkview's basketball coach from 1984 until 1995.

White, 69, pleaded guilty to deviate sexual abuse in May after a woman came forward to investigators and told them White performed sex acts on her about once a week for two years between 1991 and 1993.

Responding to the prosecutor's statements on Monday, White's lawyer, Dee Wampler, said the complaints of White's possible inappropriate behavior with other students were irrelevant to the sentencing hearing. Not only does White deny he behaved inappropriately, Wampler said, but they do not come from witnesses in this case.

White could spend as few as 120 days behind bars

Wampler suggested White be sentenced to a short "shock" time in Greene County Jail. Chapman, the prosecuting attorney, wanted White to serve seven years in prison.

Judge Calvin Holden gave White a seven-year sentence, but the former basketball coach could be getting out in as few as 120 days.

That's because White will be placed in a sexual offender assessment unit for 120 days, at the end of which White could be released on probation.

Chapman noted that the case was unusual because it was so long between the abuse and when it was reported by the victim, but that doesn't mean White should get off with a lighter sentence.

Imagine if the crime had been committed today, Chapman told Holden, the judge. If a coach or teacher engaged in oral sex and digital penetration with a 14-year-old student today, Chapman said that coach or teacher would end up behind bars — so why treat White differently?

Wampler argued against sending White to prison, saying White's family has already suffered because of this case. White's wife of 47 years has filed for divorce, though the pair still lives together and loves each other, Wampler said.

In addition to his wife, White's son and daughter attended the sentencing. Wampler said the son, who sat in a wheelchair, recently overdosed on Xanax, causing him to lose a leg and a kidney.

Wampler described the son's overdose as "semi-related' to the stress caused by his father's case.

Wampler also noted that imprisoning White would come at a high cost to taxpayers because White takes expensive medications.

"He's been honest and forthcoming," he said of White.

People also wrote letters attesting to White's good character, Wampler said, including John Moore Jr., who served as the president of Drury University from 1983 until 2005.

"I always found Ron (White) to be personable and considered him to be an honest, reliable person and a good family man," Moore wrote.

Responding to Wampler, Chapman said those letters should be secondary to the fact that White committed a crime.

"Did those people know he put his penis in the mouth of a 14-year-old?" Chapman asked.

White spoke briefly at the sentencing, saying he was "very apologetic."

White's sentencing Monday stemmed from charges filed in 2015 that were based on a recorded conversation the victim initiated with White in which they discussed the abuse.

In that conversation, White said he could not control himself, adding that it was "just a mistake," according to a probable cause statement.

In the phone conversation, White called his encounters with the then-teenage girl a "fling" and said he and the girl had gotten "wrapped up in each other," the statement says.

According to the statement, a detective in 2015 interviewed Robert Crawford, who was one of White's assistant coaches at the time the sexual incidents occurred. Crawford, the woman told investigators, had once caught White engaged with her in a sex act, in the gym at Parkview High School, and that Crawford promptly left the room.

The statement says during the interview, Crawford recounted a story of walking into a dark office where White watched game film and saw White and the girl "grabbing at their pants."

The court documents say Crawford told the detective he wrote what he saw in a note and gave the note to one of the school counselors the day after the incident. What happened to the note and the counselor's identity are unknown.

A bond recommendation document said White was the subject of multiple sexual harassment claims by different girls during his tenure.