Accused Principal Makes First Court Appearance
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) -- The Citrus Heights elementary school principal charged with seven counts of child molestation made his first court appearance Friday after being released from the hospital Thursday night.
Robert Adams, 60, principal at Creative Frontiers School since founding it in 1976, had an arraignment hearing Friday morning in Sacramento County Superior Court. He did not enter a plea. His next scheduled court appearance is Oct. 7.
Adams was released from the hospital Thursday and briefly booked into the Sacramento County Jail before posting $250,000 bail. Conditions of his release are that he not come into contact with children under 18 and that he stay at least 1,000 feet away from Creative Frontiers, which has been shut down since July.
Citrus Heights police arrested Adams at his Folsom home on Wednesday on six felony counts of committing lewd and lascivious acts on children under 14 and one misdemeanor charge of annoying or molesting a child under 18. The charges involve girls under 10 and under and go back 15 years. The latest allegation is from June.
Adams complained of chest pain when officers arrived at his home and he was sent to Mercy San Juan Medical Center for treatment.
"We are saddened and shocked by the filing of these charges," said Adams' attorney, Linda Parisi, after Friday's court hearing as Adams, his wife and children stood behind her. "We're confident after a thorough investigation and review of the material, that it will clear Mr. Adams."
Adams also faces a civil lawsuit filed Thursday alleging he sexually molested an 8-year-old student during the 2010-11 school year. The suit alleges he took the girl for "walks" around the campus where he molested her.
Adams was also investigated in June 2000 on similar allegations involving two young girls, but the Sacramento County District Attorney's Office declined to press charges, citing insufficient evidence.
No one from the DA's office would go on camera with CBS13's Maria Medina, but the office issued a statement saying: "The totality of the evidence available to us today is significantly different from what was available in 2000."
"Our understanding is that they were investigated and determined to be unfounded," Parisi said of the allegations in 2000.
