SALISBURY — A judge on Friday ordered Catawba College to produce records in a case involving a former coach charged with molesting a child, college and law enforcement officials said.
Meanwhile, police in the New York town where Ralph Wager had previously worked told a news outlet there they are investigating claims by a man who says Wager molested him in the 1960s.
Rowan County Sheriff Kevin Auten said he hadn’t seen the discovery order and couldn’t say whether it required personnel records as reported. He called it a formality.
“It’s not any accusations toward the school or anything,” Auten said. “It’s just to make sure we’re all on the same playing field.”
He said Catawba’s attorneys, District Attorney Brandy Cook, Rowan County detectives and others involved in the investigation met Thursday to discuss the case.
Catawba spokeswoman Tonia Black-Gold said only that the order listed “documents to be produced.”
Wager was arrested July 17 after authorities said he molested a child younger than 10 while employed by the college in the 1980s.
The 69-year-old was charged with three counts of felony first-degree sex offense with a child, three counts of crimes against nature and three counts of felony indecent liberties with a child.
He remained in Rowan County jail Friday under a $1 million bond.
At a bond hearing in Rowan County court Wednesday, a prosecutor said the boy’s mother made Catawba College officials aware of the allegations in the 1980s.
Catawba officials restricted Wager’s access to the college pool, where he had met the boy, the prosecutor said.
The boy’s mother cut off contact between the boy and Wager, but after she died from cancer, he re-entered the boy’s life and the sexual abuse continued, according to the charges.
Wager coached the men’s soccer team at Catawba from 1983 to 1990 and was inducted into the college’s Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
Catawba College President Brien Lewis issued a statement Friday saying the court order was “in the normal course of the law enforcement investigation and we see it as further indication that we are all determined to investigate these allegations.”
Lewis said the private college “must refrain from making comments that may bear on the investigation on the Wager case to permit law enforcement time to work.”
Lewis said Catawba will continue an independent investigation into the allegations.
The alleged victim contacted the Sheriff’s Office earlier this year after searching the Internet and learning that Wager still worked with children, investigators said. Wager, who most recently lived in Charlotte, was coaching at the Steele Creek Soccer Club there at the time of his arrest.
At the bond hearing Wednesday, the prosecutor said a second man had come forward alleging that Wager molested him while he was a student athlete in New York in the 1960s. From 1967 until 1983, Wager taught physical education and coached soccer and swimming at Webster Thomas High School in Webster, N.Y., near Rochester.
A lieutenant at the Webster Police Department confirmed to television station WHAM that the man had contacted the agency to report the alleged abuse. Lt. Michael Chiapperini told the TV station investigators were talking with the district attorney there about charges available in the 1960s and whether any statute of limitations would apply.