District Attorney Pat Head said the sentence was not too harsh - "Not under these circumstances."
"He severely injured him," Head said, referring to how the teacher and coach, Preston Moses, had his lip completely split open, which necessitated surgery and likely another procedure.
Additionally, Ronald Lee, 41, of Austell, punched the teacher and coach on school property in front of Moses' 7-year-old child and Pebblebrook students. Because of this, the jury found Lee guilty of aggravated battery and three counts of cruelty to children. The cruelty to children charges resulted from Lee "having knowledge that a child under the age of 18 is present and sees or hears the act of the accused," according to his arrest warrant.
Lee was found not guilty of aggravated assault, which could have landed him in prison for up to 20 years.
"Parents have got to understand they can't resort to violence in front of children," Head said. "It's giving the wrong signal."
Head said the sentence was consistent with a previous sentence two years ago from a different Cobb Superior Court judge, who gave a parent five years to serve also after that parent hit a coach.
Lee's attorney, Lagrant Anthony, said Lee's sentence could have been shorter if the coach would've "expressed to the ADA to let bygones be bygones."
He said Lee and Moses were friendly to each other before the incident, and Lee and his wife gave a "sincere apology" to Moses and the coach's son during the trial.
"But I can see the judge's point of view, because of the type of crime it is, since it was against a public official, and the type of injury," Anthony said. "It wasn't just a cut, and it was in front of his little kid."
Cobb Superior Court Judge Tain Kell sentenced Lee. Assistant District Attorney Bonnie Smith prosecuted.
Anthony said he believed the sentence was too harsh, especially since he said Lee had no previous record - something that Anthony believes will help Lee get paroled from prison before serving the entire five years.
According to Lee's arrest warrant, the father approached the coach from behind around 5 p.m. on Oct. 23, 2008, during a football practice at Pebblebrook High School. He punched the coach in mouth with "an unknown object," the warrant states.
Head said several witnesses testified seeing a role of pennies in Lee's hand.
Lee was reportedly upset with the coach after Moses had made Lee's then-17-year-old son run laps for missing a class. Lee's son is now in the military and is heading to Iraq, Anthony said. Lee owned a trucking business in Austell, his lawyer said.
Moses still coaches football, wrestling and track at Pebblebrook.
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The prosecutors will now claim they were successful in a "child abuse" case and the electorate will think they (prosecutors) are really "tough on crime". Chalk one up for the prosecutor come election time.
Since the State Legislature changed the law that was allowing them to throw teens into prison for 20 years as "sex offenders" (for having sex with their teen girl/boyfriends) the Cobb prosecutors office looks like they have had to find something else with a compelling label (child abuse/neglect) that they can easily prosecute.
Please don't waste my dollars housing people in jail who do not belong in prison for long periods of time.
BTW, anybody heard about the gang activity in Cobb county being eradicated recently?
In addition, this is a superfluous case filling up our prison system. This guy DOES NOT need a prison sentence his needs anger management, especially considering the context of their relationship. Do you realize how much of a burden locking up this guy will be on the taxpayers? An average of $21k per year. This is almost as bad as jailing people for wearing their pants below the waist. Complete waste of our dollars.
An appeal of this should be easy. There needs to a reduction in his punishment, for him, for his family and for any future person in his situation. This is a dangerous precedent for our state law.
The most disturbing thing was the coach seems to have been disciplining the kid for missing class. This only shows that the coach/teacher cares. I do the same for my players.
Pebblebrook is a tough place to teach and coach. We need more coaches keeping their players in line. Hold them accountable. This parent is either to intellectually limited or a sociopath.