Sobrato teacher’s arrest on Monday ends five-month
investigation
Morgan Hill – Ann Sobrato High School math teacher and former head football coach Jeff Patterson was arrested Monday after months of investigations into allegations he had a sexual encounter with a 17-year-old female student.
Morgan Hill Police Cmdr. Joe Sampson said a warrant was issued Monday morning alleging charges of unlawful sex with a minor and a felony oral copulation with a minor.
Patterson’s lawyer, Larry Biegel, did not return a call for comment. Calls to Patterson’s residence in Hollister were not answered.
The Morgan Hill Times is not disclosing the identify of Patterson’s accuser because she’s a minor.
“We contacted him and his attorney, and he agreed to self-surrender at the police department,” Sampson said Monday afternoon. “He came in without event, of his own accord. Because he is not a flight risk, he was able to post bail, $10,000, so he did not have to go to county jail.”
The charges are punishable by up to a year in jail, Sampson said. The date of Patterson’s first court appearance was not released by presstime.
The student allegedly told her father, who called police on Nov. 8, that Patterson “urged” her to forge a note to get out of her sixth-period class on Nov. 4, then picked her up in his car as she waited on Burnett Avenue. The father told police she said they then drove to the UPS store, then drove to a side street and parked, and she had oral sex with him.
According to the entry in the police dispatch log for Nov. 8, when the girl’s father called police, he told them he “believes the acts may be consensual, but the daughter did see a counselor today because she is very emotional.”
Sampson said the Morgan Hill Police Department spent between 160 and 200 man hours on the investigation, which involved two detectives, two school resource officers, a detective sergeant, two patrol officers, and occasionally himself.
Sampson said that during the nearly six-month-long investigation, police conducted interviews with a number of individuals and collected DNA evidence.
“We collect DNA through a variety of methods,” he said. “It can be a hair follicle, something on a swab, fluids. Those kind of tests tend to extend the length of the investigation.”
But the DNA evidence was important enough to wait for, he said.
“In this kind of a case, you really need both kinds of evidence,” said Sampson. “Particularly in a ‘he said-she said’ case, you’re looking for things that confirm or rule out if the two people were in the same place at the same time.”
Patterson’s accuser also could not be contacted. The Times sought comment from the girl’s mother at her San Jose home but the woman closed the door and would not respond to a request for comment. She has, in an earlier interview, accused Patterson of seducing her daughter.
Patterson has been on paid leave from his teaching position at Sobrato since November. During the Sobrato football program’s end of season banquet on Nov. 16, both the junior varsity and varsity teams were honored, but Patterson was not in attendance. He was also forced to miss the team’s last game Nov. 11 in Fortuna.
Morgan Hill Unified School District Superintendent Alan Nishino said the district cannot comment on the arrest or on the charges because it is a personnel issue.
“What I can tell you is that we have cooperated with the police department. We will continue to cooperate,” he said.
