Ceres man jailed in child sex allegations from a decade ago. He is being held on $1.75M bail
Ripon police arrested a Ceres man Tuesday morning on suspicion of committing sex crimes against children. The man is being held on $1.75 million bail.
Police took Derek William Young, 41, into custody Tuesday morning in a parking lot at the Kaiser Permanente Modesto Medical Center.
Young identified himself as a Ceres resident and his occupation as a patient care tech for Kaiser, according to a document obtained by The Bee. A Kaiser spokesman confirmed Young is an employee.
“However, he is not working at Kaiser Permanente, pending investigation,” the spokesman said in an email. “Kaiser Permanente is cooperating with law enforcement’s investigation as well as conducting our own.”
Young is a coach for the Pitman High School wrestling team. He was brought on as a volunteer walk-on coach during the 2021-22 season and has been a paid walk-on coach since the 2022-23 season, according to a statement released by the Turlock Unified School District. Assistant coaches are eligible to receive $3,025 in compensation, according to the district.
Young also coached in the Ceres Unified School District. CUSD sent a notification to Ceres High students and parents out of what it called an abundance of caution regarding Young’s arrest.
The notification said Young was a walk-on wrestling coach at Mae Hensley Junior High School from October 2016 to February 2017, and an assistant wrestling coach at Ceres High School during the 2017-18 to 2019-20 wrestling seasons. “District records reflect that a Department of Justice background check was properly conducted,” according to the notification.
Ripon police Sgt. Paul Staley said Young is suspected of committing the sex crimes more than a decade ago in Ripon. He said the crimes involve more than one child but declined to provide more details about the allegations.
A man who answered a Bee phone call Thursday identified himself as Young’s brother and confirmed Young lives in Ceres. “These are false allegations,” the man said before hanging up.
Young is being held at the Stanislaus County Public Safety Center on three counts: continuous sexual abuse of a child, engaging in a sex act with a child under the age of 10 and committing a lewd or lascivious act with a child under the age of 14.
Staley said Young was booked at the Public Safety Center and not the San Joaquin County Jail because he has the right to an immediate bail hearing based on the bail included on his arrest warrant.
Staley said he did not know when the bail hearing would take place. But he said eventually Young will be transferred to the San Joaquin County Jail. Additional information was not immediately available from the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office.
The Turlock Unified School District’s statement said the district has no indications that any of its students were harmed. The statement said all of the district’s coaches are required to pass FBI and U.S. Department of Justice background checks and are fingerprinted before they can work with students.
“We also receive updates from the FBI/DOJ if anyone commits a crime while in our employment,” according to the statement. “The safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority and we encourage anyone with information to please contact law enforcement.”
The statement said the school district was notified by law enforcement about Young’s arrest. A district spokeswoman said the school district’s “protocol is to prohibit individuals who are the subject of a criminal investigation from having contact with our schools and students.”
This story was originally published February 8, 2024 at 12:40 PM.
