A former private-school coach was sentenced to 30 years in prison Tuesday for sexually assaulting two students, girls who said he had begun pursuing them for sex when they were 12-year-olds in 2012.
Michael DeWayne McCray, 37, of Little Rock pleaded guilty to first-degree sexual assault and second-degree sexual assault in exchange for the 30-year prison sentence imposed by Pulaski County Circuit Judge Herb Wright.
The married father of five children, four of them girls, faced a maximum of 50 years on those charges.
Deputy prosecutor Jeanna Sherrill dropped a rape charge and two counts of sexual indecency with a child in return for his plea. The rape count carries a potential life sentence. Records show that McCray has twice attempted to establish a taxpayer-funded boys-only charter school but was unsuccessful.
The abuse occurred between August 2012 and May 2014 while the girls, now 17, were students at The Anthony School, a private school for pre-kindergarten through middle school students.
McCray was a physical education teacher and athletic coach at the middle school for two years until June 2014 when school administrators fired him for reasons they would not disclose, although officials did say police were involved.
McCray was working at a Jacksonville school when he was arrested on the sexual assault charges in November 2015.
After McCray was taken to jail Tuesday, a woman among McCray's supporters, at least one of whom was crying, called out, "I hope you're happy" to prosecutors and supporters of the victims.
The victims did not attend the sentencing after watching McCray plead guilty last week.
But among the two girls' supporters was an 18-year-old woman who had told police in June 2014 that shortly after she had left the private school to attend high school, McCray propositioned her by text message for an "intimate relationship."
She said "Coach Mac" texted her at least six times between January 2014 and April 2014, and told her at a basketball game that she had a "nice butt" and he wanted to be alone with her, court filings show.
A Little Rock police investigation found insufficient evidence of wrongdoing to pursue criminal charges in that case.
But detectives launched a second probe in October 2015 after receiving word that McCray had engaged in illegal sexual activity with the other two girls.
The first victim to be questioned told authorities then that she hadn't had any contact with McCray for two years and was coming forward because she felt she would be safe if she told what he had done to her.
According to the arrest affidavit, the girl said the abuse had begun when she was in seventh grade when McCray surprised her when she was in a school closet looking for supplies. He grabbed her shirt and kissed her, pushing her up against a wall, the girl said.
He told her not to tell anyone and continued pursuing her, despite her efforts to avoid him, and he eventually raped her, according to the affidavit, which describes her as saying she was scared of him because he was so much bigger than her.
"It would just keep on happening and I would fight, but it didn't do much so I just, like, stopped fighting," the girl told police. "I was a 12-year-old so it didn't really work much."
She told police that the first time he raped her, she was in the gym putting away sports equipment and McCray pushed her down on a desk and held her down, despite her kicking, the affidavit states.
He sexually assaulted her at his home as well under the pretext that he was giving her and a friend a ride to a track meet, according to the affidavit.
That friend was also McCray's other victim, who was also interviewed in October 2015 by police. The second girl said she had learned what was going on between her friend and McCray in the summer before she started eighth grade, and that when "Coach Mac" found out that she knew, he began to give her "intense hugs," describing those embraces as the way someone would hug their husband or boyfriend, the affidavit states.
The second victim said McCray told her he wanted to have sex with her, and that sometimes when he would hug her, he would become aroused and ask her if she could feel that, according to the affidavit. She also said that McCray had kissed her twice, including one time in a gym closet.
When he was arrested in November 2015, McCray was working at Lighthouse Charter School on North First Street in Jacksonville. Administrators said he had been hired in June 2015 after a background check and screening.
Records show that McCray and his wife, Kadrian Nicole McCray, unsuccessfully attempted to establish a publicly funded open-enrolment charter school in Little Rock in 2011.
The couple are currently in Chapter 13 proceedings. Court records show McCray and his wife of almost 14 years have filed for bankruptcy five times but have been unable to complete the process.
In bankruptcy filings, McCray described himself as earning $2,541 a month as Lighthouse school's dean of student culture; and $39,767 in 2014 at The Anthony School, up from $38,459 in 2013 at Anthony.
The filings show McCray reported that he was a public health educator at the state Department of Health in 2011, a teacher at Remington College in 2009 and was working for the American Red Cross in 2007.
In an August 2016 bankruptcy petition, McCray reported he was earning $780 per month with $624 in take-home pay while working for a janitorial service.
Michael McCray's second attempt at establishing the Academic Leadership Academy School of Health Sciences for Young Men also was unsuccessful. It began in July 2012, shortly before his first victim said he began to molest her.
The proposed school would have served up to 300 boys in pre-kindergarten at a facility at Markham and South Hughes streets. Its purpose was to promote "academic excellence, greater fairness and higher literacy" through a special emphasis on health sciences, including anatomy, physiology and treating pathological diseases.
McCray said the school was necessary to combat a growing problem of young boys underperforming in school, with more than half of them dropping out of high school.
McCray, who would have been the school's chief executive officer and president, incorporated the nonprofit Academic Leadership Group in March 2012, records from the secretary of state show.
With the school's proposed budget projecting an operating loss of as much as $10 million, the Little Rock School Board opposed the its application. The Education Department ultimately rejected its application in the fall of 2012 for being incomplete.
Metro on 11/09/2016