By Ray Huard

Published in the Union Tribune.  Please do not repost this posting is for archival purposes only

December 1, 2005

EL CAJON – A former administrator of a Barrio Logan charter school was sentenced to 10 years in prison yesterday for sexually molesting a boy he baby-sat over a two-year period.

Dennis Michael McKeown did not make a statement in Superior Court yesterday, but he said in an Oct. 25 letter to probation officials that "not a day goes by that I am not sorry for my actions."

"I am filled with disgust and self-loathing as well as shame and humility," he wrote in the letter filed with the court.

McKeown, 42, pleaded guilty to three counts of molesting the boy between August 2001 and August 2003. The boy was between 6 and 9 at the time.

Probation officials recommended that McKeown be sentenced to six years in prison, but Judge Herbert J. Exarhos said the crimes were so serious that they warranted a longer term.

"The callousness, the selfishness, the indifference demonstrated by these acts is reprehensible," the judge said. He said McKeown "turned this child into his personal sex toy."

McKeown is a former principal of King-Chavez Academy of Excellence in Barrio Logan and was chief executive officer of the corporation that runs the school when arrested in July.

His background and history of working with children should have made him aware of the effect his acts would have on the child, Exarhos said.

The boy's mother told the judge, "My son's innocence was robbed."

"I find myself hearing him calling himself scum. He's feeling dirty," the mother said. "He matters and he's asking me why this happened. I can't answer why adults do things they're not supposed to do."

Prosecutor Kurt Mechals told the judge that although McKeown admitted molesting the boy three times, the boy remembers at least 10 incidents.

Defense attorney John Phillips urged the judge to show leniency in part because of the good deeds McKeown did in developing the charter school.

"Under his leadership, the charter school excelled beyond everyone's imagination," Phillips said.

Phillips said 27 people were in the courtroom in a show of support for McKeown, including his former wife and the man who took over as the school's chief executive officer.

The defense lawyer said a court-appointed psychologist and a mental health counselor whom McKeown went to on his own have determined that McKeown is not a pedophile and that he acted out of character when he molested the boy.

McKeown told probation officials that during the time he molested the boy he was depressed over the breakup of his marriage and was drinking heavily and smoking marijuana, court records state. He told officials he wasn't using that as an excuse.

In a June 27 telephone call to the boy's mother secretly recorded by La Mesa police, McKeown said, "I don't have a kid thing. I was drunk, and I think it just happened."