The Sun Sunnyvale's Newspaper News Briefs Lamson enters no contest plea Surprising prosecutors who spent more than a year working on the case, former Homestead High School football coach Jeff Lamson Oct. 19 pleaded "no contest" to molestation charges in a San Jose courtroom. Lamson is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 16, when he could face a maximum of six years in prison. He pleaded no contest to 12 felony counts, including 10 counts of penetration with a foreign object and two counts of oral copulation with a 16-year-old female student during the 1990-91 school year. He also entered no-contest pleas to two misdemeanor charges stemming from "annoying and molesting" a 14-year-old female during the 1997 school year. Deputy District Attorney Deborah Baldocchi said after consulting with the two female victims, now ages 24 and 15, that her office would most likely argue that Lamson should serve three years behind bars. Prosecutors and Lamson's attorney, Chuck Smith, were meeting in a pretrial conference Monday to discuss the case when Smith announced his client was ready to enter the plea. By pleading no contest, Lamson will not go to trial, but he still faces a maximum six-year prison sentence. "We had met in conference several times before, but were unsuccessful," Baldocchi said. "I was totally surprised." Though the action stunned district attorneys, it was hardly a sudden decision on the part of Lamson or his attorney. "We had been thinking about it for a long time," Smith said. "This was just the right thing to do. He wants to get it behind him and move on with his life."Now that the case won't come to trial, Baldocchi expressed relief for the victims who won't have to testify in an open courtroom. "It's very traumatic for victims of sexual assault to discuss in public the acts that have occurred," Baldocchi said. "Especially for a young girl who is 15. And it's also difficult for the older victim because of all the unpleasant circumstances surrounding a prosecution. "Both very much did not want to testify at trial because of the trauma and the emotional drain." Smith did not say how much sentence time he will argue for his client, but did comment that "no time would be unrealistic." Board sets date for charter school forum When a group of Sunnyvale parents filed a petition to start a charter school at the Oct. 1 Sunnyvale Elementary School District board meeting, the board had 30 days to hold a public forum on the topic. The board recently announced the discussion will be held on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at Bishop Elementary School. Following the forum, the board has 30 days to render a decision on the proposal. At the Thursday meeting, the board will hear input from community members, parents, principals, teachers and district staff. Copies of the petition are available at all district schools. The petition calls for the creation of a charter school, called the Sunnyvale Intensive Learning Center, that would allow parents to create their own curriculum and choose their own teachers. [ Back to Contents Page | Sunnyvale Sun Home Page | Archives ] This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, October 21, 1998. ©1998 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.