Mike Hearn was arrested on underage sex charges
LAX COURTHOUSE — A Santa Monica High School coach who allegedly slept with an underage student is expected to appear before a judge here next month.
Prosecutors said on Tuesday they will decide any day whether to file felony sex charges against Mike Hearn, 37, an assistant coach at Samohi. Hearn was arrested June 2 for allegedly sleeping with a student from outside of the Santa Monica-Malibu school district. “(Deputy District Attorney Robin Katzenstein) does have all the paper work now, she’s reviewing it and hopefully we’ll have a decision in a couple of days,” said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office.
Hearn, a Samohi graduate and community member with children in local schools, could not be reached for comment. Colleagues willing to discuss the matter described him as an energetic football and basketball coach that got along well with everybody.
“He was very nice, outgoing. Great guy with the kids, great guy with the parents,” said Jose Corral, founder of the local chapter of the Pop Warner youth football league. Hearn, whose son played Pop Warner football and whose daughter was a cheerleader, coached in the league for four years, as recently as last year, according to Corral.
“I’ve known him for awhile, as a result of his coaching in our program, and I found him to be respectful and very caring with kids,” added Corral. “As far as I’m concerned, he has good relationships with the parents, and has always had great rapport with the kids.”
“He’s just one of those great people-people that I know.”
The victim, whose identity is protected because she is a minor, has been taken to the Stuart House in West Los Angeles, which cares for sexual abuse victims. The Stuart House is overseen by officials from the Rape Treatment Center, which is based in the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center on 16th Street. “It’s basically a facility that enables young victims of sexual abuse, children, not to have to go to several different places — for treatment, for psychological evaluation, for interviews by police, for interviews by prosecutors,” Gibbons said.
Hearn was arrested at Samohi on June 2 after a three-week investigation by Santa Monica police. He was released on $42,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court July 2. Hearn’s bail was doubled because he had an outstanding warrant for traffic citations. He also apparently had been in trouble with the law years before — Gibbons said a Michael David Hearn with the same birth date and the same physical characteristics was convicted of grand theft in Santa Monica 15 years ago.
District officials have put Hearn on “home assignment.”
“Right now he has no duties, no job with the district at the moment,” said John Deasy, superintendent of schools. “What is normally the case in personnel matters is there’s no active employment until a resolution is made in the matter. So if he’s found innocent of the charges, the district will re-evaluate the case.”
Students at Samohi had mixed reactions to Hearn’s arrest. An article in the June 11 edition of The Samohi, the school newspaper, reported that while some of Hearn’s athletes were shocked to hear of the alleged wrongdoing, others were not.
Said the article, “To summarize her reaction to Hearn’s arrest, one girls varsity basketball player said, ‘Why did everybody, when they heard on the radio that a Samo coach was arrested for statutory rape, did they automatically think, ‘Mike Hearn?’”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 16, 2004. Read the original PDF.