The Sacramento Bee, February 28, 1998
FORMER ENCINA COACH SENTENCED
By Ramon Coronado
   Jon Elliot Hightower, the former Encina High School counselor and
basketball coach, was sentenced Friday to six months in jail for having a
sexual relationship with one of his students.
   Sacramento Municipal Court Judge Jane Ure also ordered Hightower, 34, to
perform 100 hours of community service so the community can see what happens
"when teachers have sex with our children."
   Ure said the community service -- to be worked out with probation
officers -- would allow Hightower to "talk to minors about just saying no to
temptations."
   Hightower pleaded guilty last month to eight felony counts of unlawful
sex with a 16-year-old girl between June and October of last year. The
maximum jail sentence could have been one year.
   Saying Hightower was "not a predator and not a pervert," Ure declined to
order Hightower to register as a sex offender.
   Deputy District Attorney A.J. Pongratz argued that the registration was
necessary to ensure that Hightower "doesn't fall between the cracks" and get
another teaching job where he could sexually offend again.
   "He could end up in a private school. We have to send a message. He took
the trust of the community. He took the trust that every teacher has and he
broke that trust," Pongratz said.
   But Hightower's lawyer, Michael Rothschild, said that a new law, enacted
because of cases like Hightower's, specifically forbids any teacher
convicted of a felony sex offense from ever having their teaching credential
reinstated.
   "He lost the right to work with children. That was his pride and joy,"
Rothschild told the judge.
   Hightower, who has a master's degree in counseling, lost his teaching
credential when he pleaded guilty.
   Hightower declined to give a statement in court, but in a letter he
submitted to the judge he admitted he was wrong. "I have spent most of my
life helping others realize the difference between right and wrong, never
once stopping to check my own self," he wrote.
   He explained how he was under stress, having lost his mother and a close
aunt who died, and from coaching the high school basketball team from being
"the worst in the city" to the state championships in only two years.
   "The flattery of a younger female who worked for me and knew all about my
problems got the best of me," he wrote. "For over three months she was the
aggressor in the entire situation. I have made an extremely bad choice in
judgment at a time when I was emotionally vulnerable," he wrote, "for which
I will forever pay the price."
   Aside from Hightower's letter, the judge had reviewed a probation report
prepared for the sentencing. It said Hightower and the girl had relations in
his office in the high school gymnasium.
   "How dare you," Judge Ure said. The judge called Hightower's explanation
of the stress in his life as "nothing more than rationalizations."
   Even though the victim has admitted encouraging and seeking out Hightower
for the affair, Ure blamed Hightower for having "tacitly encouraged her."
   The judge said when teens have crushes on their teachers, it "seems quite
clear to me that you say thank you, but no."