A Julius West Middle School teacher and Richard Montgomery High School coach has resigned his teaching and coaching positions, more than three months after the state dropped charges accusing him of having sex with a 16-year-old former student.

In March, the state dropped both of the two fourth-degree sex offense charges against Scott Duane Spear, 47, of Rockville.

"The allegations were false and this was a rush to judgment," Spear said in a statement released by his attorney, Steven VanGrack, Wednesday. "But after suffering through the highly publicized pain of being wrongly accused, the damage to my professional reputation has been done."

Spear said he decided to resign because “the ordeal has been grueling for me and my family, and we now need time to heal."

Spear had been on paid administrative leave from the school system since his arrest Feb. 2. The paid leave ended at the end of May, VanGrack said in an interview with Rockville Patch.

“The bottom line is, he’s had it,” VanGrack said. “He doesn’t really want to return to teaching. He’s exhausted."

Spear had been a teacher and coach in the county since 1988, the statement said.

He taught social studies at Julius West Middle School and coached cross-country and boys basketball at Richard Montgomery High School. He also coached basketball at Wheaton High School in the mid-1990s.

Prosecutors said Spear’s case did not go forward “due to a technicality,” which they called a “major flaw” in the law.

Spear worked part-time as the alleged victim's coach at Richard Montgomery. The alleged sexual encounters occurred at a private home, police said, and not on school grounds or during a school-sponsored event, police said.

State prosecutors said those circumstances put the case outside of the definition of Maryland’s sex offense law, which states, in part, that “the accused must be 'a full-time, permanent employee' of the school."

A bill to address that issue was withdrawn from a state Senate committee earlier this year.

Even if the issue were addressed, “[Spear] still would not have been found guilty,” said VanGrack, a former Rockville mayor who, through his work with the city, knew Spear.