Duane Beery will be out of a job as girls basketball coach at Maranatha Christian Center if there is any truth in charges that he sought sex online from an undercover police officer in Pueblo he thought was a 15-year-old girl.
After a meeting with parents Tuesday night, school director Patricia Loser said, “As far as we’re concerned, unless he is totally and completely exonerated, he won’t have anything to do with our school and our students ever again.”
Arvada police interviewed all the girls on the team and found “absolutely nothing” incriminating against the 53-year-old coach. Loser said the extensive background check the school requires before hiring also turned up no reason for concern.
Pueblo police said Beery had been exchanging e-mails with the decoy since November, seeking to arrange a tryst, according to the charges.
Beery was arrested Monday morning on several charges, including Internet luring and attempted sexual assault on a child. Beery remained in the Pueblo County Detention Center on Tuesday evening under a $25,000 bond, a jail spokeswoman said.
The Pueblo detective who worked on the case was not available Tuesday evening, but 9News reported that the officer said Beery used the screen name highaltitudediver12000 and shaved five years off his age in the chats, as well as offering the person he thought was an underage girl a bubble bath with whipped cream and chocolate syrup during the encounter.
Though a veteran coach in the metro region, Beery was in his first year at Maranatha, which has an enrollment of about 500.
Joey Bunch, The Denver Post
