Trial begins for former Ceres swim coach accused of misconduct

She was a 14-year-old eighth-grader who had just joined the Ceres Dolphins Swim Team, when she says the coach asked to be her friend on Facebook.

A prosecutor on Thursday told a jury that the swim team’s head coach, Tracy Bull, initiated a series of Facebook messages with the girl before he made a sexual suggestion about one of his dreams.

“Crossing boundaries, betraying trust; all in an attempt to date a Dolphin,” Deputy District Attorney Ahnna Reicks told the jurors.

Kirk McAllister, Bull’s attorney, asked the jurors to reserve their judgment until they hear both sides of the story, and said the defense will present witnesses associated with the swim team who “were not cherry-picked” by the prosecution.

McAllister said the jury’s job is not to determine whether Bull was behaving appropriately. He said it’s the prosecution’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Bull had an abnormal and unnatural sexual interest in a child.

“That’s what you have to judge everything by,” McAllister told the jury.

Bull. a longtime Ceres coach, is accused of misconduct with two teenage girls on his swim team. He is charged with two misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a child. His trial began Thursday morning with opening statements from the attorneys.

The prosecutor told the jury that Bull had given a nickname — “Chesty” — to the 14-year-old girl, identified in court as “Jane Doe 1.” Reicks said that Bull also called her “Nuggs,” and he explained to the girl that it was because she was his “golden nugget.”

The defense attorney said in court that Bull never used the term “Chesty” with the girl; his client used it when speaking to the girl’s family. McAllister explained to the jurors that Bull was telling her family that the girl was using an old swimsuit that didn’t quite cover up her breasts, and the girl later got a swimsuit that fit her.

After the girl added her coach to her list of Facebook friends, Bull sent her message asking her how her family camping trip went, according to Reicks. The prosecutor said Bull later asked the girl which high school she would be attending, and he also told her that he was her “biggest fan.”

The Facebook messages continued. Reicks said in court that Bull later told “Jane Doe 1” that he probably shouldn’t tell her this because he could “get in trouble,” but he had a dream about the girl. The prosecutor told the jurors that Bull asked the girl not to tell anyone.

“I’m so damn old, and you’re so damn young,” Bull wrote in a Facebook message to “Jane Doe 1,” according to Reicks.

The prosecutor said that Bull described his dream in which he was laying down after a swim meet with his hand on the girl’s hip, and “Jane Doe 1” pushed her hip up. Reicks told the jury that the girl did not respond to that final Facebook message from Bull. She said the girl soon after burst into tears.

“She was horrified,” Reicks said about the girl. “She knew right then and there that the conversation had turned sexual.”

McAllister told the jury that in the Facebook messages Bull had explained to the girl that he had this dream after falling asleep while having his hand on his wife’s hip; and in his dream he saw the girl.

“It was stupid of him,” McAllister said.

But the defense attorney told the jurors that the totality of the evidence will show that Bull was a good coach, who got results and was “politically incorrect.”

“Jane Doe 1” quickly told her family that she was quitting the swim team. Her grandmother called police shortly after seeing the messages from Bull, according to the prosecutor.

The allegations that led to Bull’s arrest were reported to police June 14, 2016. Police questioned him the following day before arresting him.

The defendant had coached boys basketball and water polo at Ceres High School during the school year before his June 15, 2016, arrest. A Ceres Unified School District assistant superintendent said at that time that Bull will no longer coach for the district.

Several hours after the coach’s arrest, the Ceres Dolphins board announced it had suspended Bull pending the outcome of the police investigation. The team — in existence for several decades —included about 170 boys and girls from 5 to 18 years old.

The team, which used the Ceres High pool, included swimmers from Ceres, Modesto, Turlock and surrounding communities.

Reicks said investigators conducted a forensics test on Bull’s cell phone and found another string of digital messages they considered suspicious. The messages had been exchanged with another member of the swim team; a 17-year-old girl identified in court as “Jane Doe 2.”

She explained in a reply message to Bull that she had just been on the phone with a college recruiter. Bull replied to the girl “You just don’t love me anymore,” Reicks told the jury.

The prosecutor said the messages continued with Bull telling “Jane Doe 2” that he was jealous of a boy who liked her. Reicks said Bull also told the girl that he was born 30 years too soon.

McAllister told the jurors that it’s important for them to look at all the language in these messages; not just the segments chosen by the prosecution.

He said that “Jane Doe 2” was from a poor family living in a trailer park. The defense attorney told the jury the coach was encouraging the girl to date the boy who liked her, because the boy was college-bound and driven.

“He saw that as good match for her,” McAllister said.

“Jane Doe 2” told police that Bull was always joking around, and that the defendant never said anything inappropriate to her, according to McAllister. He told the jurors they can’t isolate her statement to police from everything else alleged by “Jane Doe 1.”

The prosecutor said investigators questioned three other swimmers who were on the team during Bull’s decade as coach. Reicks said those team members told investigators that Bull made similar suggestive comments, and all three of them quit the team.

Testimony in the trial is expected to continue through the end of next week in Stanislaus Superior Court.