Crime & Safety

Attorney: Teacher Accused of Sex Offenses 'Professes Complete Innocence'

ABC7: Julius West teacher 'offered to take a polygraph,' attorney says.

The former Rockville mayor representing Scott Duane Spear, a Julius West Middle School teacher who he coached at Richard Montgomery High School, says the accuser is making up the story, ABC7 reports.

Steven VanGrack, who served as Rockville’s mayor from 1985 to 1987, told ABC7 that Spear “professes complete innocence and in fact what was interesting was he met with me and offered to take a polygraph.”

VanGrack also suggested that the accuser fabricated the allegations against Spear, who also coaches boys basketball at Richard Montgomery, where media was barred from a game against on Friday evening.

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“This could be a troubled young girl who is making allegations against a mentor coach teacher,” VanGrack told ABC7.

Spear, 47, of Rockville, was released Friday on $10,000 unsecured personal bond, The Gazette reported.

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Spear did not speak at a bond hearing on Friday afternoon where VanGrack argued that the original bond set in the case—$250,000—was “outrageous,” The Gazette reported.

“This is a situation for an individual who would have turned himself in if he was given the opportunity,” VanGrack told a Montgomery Country District Court judge, The Gazette reported.

Spear is next due in District Court on March 13.

He was arrested Thursday and is charged with two counts of fourth-degree sex offense after police say the girl, a Richard Montgomery student, told an unnamed person that she had sex with Spear on two occasions last spring.

Spear had been the student’s teacher when she was in eighth grade at Julius West and had been her track coach since 2009, according to police.


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