Former local high school football coach pleads guilty to indecent liberties with students

HENRICO - .R. Tucker High School’s former football coach pleaded guilty this week to three counts of taking indecent liberties with two teenage students.

In a brief hearing in Henrico County Circuit Court, Danville native William Macgregor “Mac” Leighton, 31, acknowledged his guilt in months-long relationships with students 15 and 17.

A prosecutor said the relationships consisted of the students sending Leighton scores of nude images of themselves by cell phone and exchanges of graphic text messages.

In addition, according to Deputy Commonwealth’s Attorney Deana A. Malek, Leighton had intimate fondling sessions with the older student two times at his home in the late hours of March 7 and Feb. 7 of this year.

“Both girls are from very strong families and are doing well,” Malek said after court. Neither victim appeared yesterday, but Malek did not rule out the possibility that an appearance or a written statement could occur when Leighton is sentenced Feb. 19.

He faces up to 15 years in prison, five years on each conviction. The relationships began in October last year and ended in April.

Malek said Leighton pleaded guilty with no promise of a sentencing recommendation.

Defense lawyer Craig Cooley told Judge L.A. Harris Jr. yesterday that he took issue with some characterizations of the evidence by Malek, but he said Leighton agrees that there is sufficient evidence for conviction on the charges to which Leighton pleaded guilty.

Malek said Leighton told both young women that he had separated from his wife, was lonely and loved them.

Leighton, Malek told the court, sometimes contacted the younger victim two and three times on weekends and at night. She would send him batches of nude images of herself every few months at his request, Malek said.

In April of this year, he offered to meet her after football practice to have sex on a pull-out couch inside Tucker’s field house. She declined, Malek said.

The older student sent Leighton as many as 100 nude images of herself by cell phone, Malek said.

But the prosecutor said the students came to a point at which both feared that ending the relationship could jeopardize their grades; during one of the sessions at his home with the older student, Leighton threatened to “body slam her or kick her ass” if she revealed what was happening, Malek said.

Leighton spoke only in single-word replies yesterday to questions put to him by the court and a clerk. He has not been associated with the Henrico school system since his arrest in May; he had taught social studies and history.

Leighton remained free on $50,000 bond yesterday and was ordered not to associate with Tucker students.

A Danville native, Leighton was a star football player at Randolph-Macon College before entering the coaching ranks. He served as an assistant football coach at Halifax County High School from 2001-03. He also coached at Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke and at GW in Danville and was in his first year as head coach at J.R. Tucker.

(Bill McKelway is a staff writer at the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Gazette-Virginian of South Boston contributed to this story.)