Molester coach sentenced to a year of work furlough

OAKLAND -- An Alameda County judge today sentenced a former high school girls basketball coach who molested three players to one year in a work furlough program in Los Angeles County.

Tanda Rucker, the 32-year-old daughter of former Berkeley City Manager Weldon Rucker, could have faced 14 years in state prison after pleading not contest in November to 18 felony counts of penetration with a foreign object and oral copulation with minors.

But Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon opted to sentence her to 12 months at Cornell Corrections Institute in El Monte.

Rucker currently lives and works in Southern California, and the sentence will allow her to continue working at her job, court officials said.

Posted on Wed, Feb. 15, 2006

Alameda coach sentenced for sex relations

By Guy Ashley CONTRA COSTA TIMESOAKLAND

- Tanda Rucker, a former Berkeley High School basketball star, was sentenced to a year at a private correctional center near Los Angeles for having sexual relationships she cultivated with teen girls while coaching at an Alameda high school.

Rucker, 32, who had pleaded guilty to 18 felonies, also was ordered to register for the rest of her life as a convicted sex offender, which her lawyer says will prevent her from coaching again.

The sentence imposed by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Thomas Reardon was more lenient than that sought by county prosecutors, who said time in state prison was appropriate for Rucker.

Reardon cited Rucker's college education, family support and the fact that she has a steady job working for a movie production company in Southern California as factors in his decision not to impose prison time.

Instead he sentenced her to five years' probation and one year in the county jail, which the judge said she could serve at the private center in the Los Angeles suburb of El Monte. The setup will allow Rucker to continue working weekdays, while sleeping at the facility each night. Reardon's decision frustrated the families of two former Encinal High School basketball players who said the sentence discounted the damage done by Rucker to the two former players, who are now 22 and 23.

"It's a slap in the face," said the mother of the 23- year-old, who asked that her name not be used so that her daughter would not be identified. "They might as well have spanked her and sent her to bed early."

Rucker, dressed in a dark gray business suit, declined Reardon's offer to address the court at this morning's sentencing hearing. She also declined comment outside court, as did her attorney, Elizabeth Grossman. Last November, when Rucker pleaded no contest to the sexual relations with minors, Grossman said the relationships were "highly consensual" and that her client was the victim of out-of-date laws because of her gender.

Had Rucker been a man, Grossman said, she would probably have been charged with statutory rape, for which state law carries no registration requirement. Statutory rape, she noted, does not apply in unlawful sex cases when the parties are the same gender.

But an attorney representing the two former Encinal students said today that Rucker benefited because of her gender. "A male coach would have been sent to prison for committing the same acts, with either male or female students," said attorney Michael Kinane of Oakland, who is representing the women in civil suits they filed against Rucker.

The charges involve the two former Encinal students, who were 16 when they met Rucker, as well as a Richmond girl Rucker reportedly met through high school basketball. The incidents occurred between 2000 and 2002. A fourth female had accused Rucker of similar behavior in 1995, but eight felony charges associated with her accusations were dropped last year after the woman declined to cooperate with criminal proceedings.

The civil suits, scheduled for trial in June, call Rucker a "child sexual predator" who "enticed, manipulated and pressured" the girls into lesbian relationships when she coached them at the school.

Rucker, a point guard known as an excellent passer and 3-point shooter, led Berkeley High to the state championship in 1991, her senior season. USA Today named her its California player of the year that season. She was heavily recruited out of high school, drawing interest from more than 100 colleges before she agreed to attend Stanford University. As a freshman, she was a reserve on Stanford's 1992 national championship team. After her sophomore season, Rucker left Stanford for Merritt Junior College in Oakland. In 1994 she transferred to the University of Houston, where she played her final two years of collegiate ball and earned third team All Southwestern Conference honors as a senior.

Rucker grew up in Berkeley, where her father, Weldon Rucker, served as city manager. Her mother, Jeannie, was a member of the city school board.

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