A former volunteer with the Kalama High School football team has been arrested on suspicion of committing multiple sex crimes involving a child; the school district says no students were in harm's way.
Cowlitz County Superior Court Judge Patricia M. Fassett set Desmoin Anthony Cooksey's bail at $15,000, appointed a public defender to represent him and issued a no-contact order on Tuesday.
Cooksey, 47, who according to public records maintains a post office box in Kalama, was arrested on suspicion of second-degree rape of a child, second-degree child molestation, indecent liberties, and a fourth-degree assault charge with sexual motivation. He is set to appear in court for his initial arraignment Thursday afternoon.
Steve Padilla, chief of staff for the Kalama School District's communications team, told The Daily News that Cooksey was a volunteer in 2019 and that his duties included sitting in the press box during games or practices to communicate plays to the head coach that season.
Padilla said that no one recruited Cooksey, that he reached out about volunteering. Padilla initially said Cooksey hadn't passed a background check, he in fact did in 2019.
"He did not have any interaction with the student athletes during the games or during practice that season," Padilla said.
The Kalama School District also sent an email addressed to "Kalama families," stating that officials were notified by law enforcement regarding the allegations "involving a volunteer previously associated with the Kalama High School football program."
The email indicates the accused was only a volunteer; he was never employed or hired by the coaching staff for any coaching position.
The district emphasized that officials have no reason to believe that any student athlete or any student were placed in harm's way, and that the allegations do not involve a Kalama student.
As of Wednesday morning, the police report had not yet been made available on Odyssey, the state's online court document service.
However, an adult filed a protection order against Cooksey, with a June 24 timestamp, alleging that he sexually assaulted their child and that they fear he might sexually assault another child.
According to the petition, both the youth and the petitioner say they went to a Kelso police station on June 20 to report that Cooksey raped and molested the girl and that the encounters started last year.
The document says the alleged offenses occurred on multiple occasions when no one was around.
With the encounters progressively escalating, the petitioner writes about one episode in which Cooksey allegedly called the youth into a bedroom and inappropriately touched her and later sexually assaulted her while pornography was being played on a television.
The petition, which included a request to protect three children, was later granted temporarily and was reissued on three occasions. Cooksey has a hearing regarding the protection order scheduled for Sept. 8.
