Woman claims sex with Hickey as a teen; School board candidate was her teacher then

Former superintendent Patrick Hickey answers a question during a League of Women Voters candidate forum for the Washington Local School Board at Calvary Bible Chapel in Toledo.

The Blade/Lori King
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A woman told a Michigan State Police investigator that she had sex with former Washington Local Schools superintendent and current school board candidate Patrick Hickey when she was 14 and he was her coach and teacher at Addison High School more than two decades ago, according to a 2016 state police report.

The Lenawee County Prosecutor’s Office declined to press charges because the woman requested that they not, and because it was reported outside the statute of limitations, according to both the police report and Scott Baker, chief assistant prosecuting attorney for the county.

“If there is additional information, we will review,” Mr. Baker told The Blade.

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Former superintendent Patrick Hickey answers a question during a League of Women Voters candidate forum for the Washington Local School Board at Calvary Bible Chapel in Toledo.

Mr. Hickey refused to respond to most questions on Friday by a Blade reporter, saying only that he “vehemently denies all accusations.” He first said the allegations were investigated in 1990 and that he was exonerated — adding the 2016 investigation was prompted by a private investigator hired by Washington Local board member Jim Langenderfer and that he was again exonerated.

When told that the case was closed because of statute of limitation and witness cooperation problems, he then repeated “I vehemently deny all accusations” in response to every question posed by a Blade reporter.

Mr. Hickey resigned from Washington Local on Dec. 11, 2015, shortly before school board officials could consider a resolution to fire him because of 37 charges compiled by a law firm hired to investigate Mr. Hickey’s behavior on behalf of the board. The Blade was given the document in October, and those charges included allegations that he failed to inform Washington Local that he had left Addison Community Schools in Addison, Mich., in 1990 after accusations that he had inappropriate relationships with students while a teacher and girls’ basketball coach.

Shortly after The Blade received that document, it filed a public records request with the Michigan State Police. The results of that request — a Michigan State Police report dated Feb. 12, 2016 — were provided to the newspaper on Friday.

Mr. Hickey is correct that the 2016 investigation was prompted by Glass City Investigations’ Chris Gill, a former Toledo police officer, but state police also conducted their own inquiry. According to the Michigan police report, Detective Sgt. Larry Rothman twice interviewed a woman who confirmed she was a student at Addison High School during Mr. Hickey’s tenure there in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

The report states she told the detective the “allegations of her having a sexual relationship with Patrick Hickey were true,” and that they started having sex when she was 14.

“She stated that her relationship with Patrick Hickey continued until she graduated from Addison High School...” according to the report.

The investigator told her that was a crime, and asked if she wanted Mr. Hickey charged. She hesitated, the report shows, then said no, because she is married with children, was worried for their safety, and that it happened a long time ago.

“... Even though she knows the relationship was wrong she has suffered no ill effect from it,” the investigator wrote. “She stated that as long as Mr. Hickey is no longer having those sorts of relationship with young girls then she does not want to disrupt her life for something that happened so long ago.”

If investigators could find other victims, she said, she would come forward to press charges.

A month before he resigned from Washington Local while facing possible termination, he messaged the woman on Facebook on Nov. 11, 2015, according to the police report. In the message, he apologised for contacting her years later, and wrote there’s a “crazy lady down here trying to dig up all kinds of dirt from Addison.”

He references still being married to his wife, and comments that the woman has a family now as well. He says a private investigator may contact her, and offers to talk to her as well.

“I don’t want your family disrupted, nor mine. The last 25 years I have pieced my work and my family back together,” he wrote in the Facebook message, which was included in the police report. “If you are going to talk to him, can you let me know so that I can prepare for the heartache, publicity, and destruction?”

Mr. Hickey refused to comment Friday to The Blade about why he sent the woman that message.

The state police investigator contacted another woman who said she never had sex with Mr. Hickey, and that the allegations involving her “were untrue and she is frustrated with people calling her and disrupting her family.”

Mr. Hickey is on Tuesday’s ballot as one of nine candidates for the Washington Local Board of Education. He was placed on administrative leave twice in 2015 before he resigned. The first leave stemmed from a district investigation into an informal complaint by a husband and wife — both teachers in the district — who claimed Mr. Hickey harassed them after an alleged affair between the wife and Mr. Hickey ended.

Contact Nolan Rosenkrans at nrosenkrans@theblade.com, 419-724-6086, or on Twitter @NolanRosenkrans.