Jury selection began today in the trial of a Douglas County man accused of stalking a high school cheerleader on his daughter’s squad last year.
Prosecutors say Carl Ruch, 47, pursued the cheerleader at Castle View High School, while he was an officer in the school booster club. Testimony in preliminary hearings contend he began flirting with the girl, sent her cards and text messages and, at one point, touched the girl on the buttocks in his home.
When he e-mailed the girl, a detective who was using the e-mail account responded. In those e-mails, Ruch professed his affections and offered to show her “how to make love without having sex,” a detective said in a previous hearing.
When Ruch arranged to meet the girl in private in September 2007, sheriff’s deputies were waiting and arrested him.
