School District Found Negligent in Sex Abuse by Celebrated Coach Garry Poe

Five women who were sexually assaulted by their high school teacher in the 1980s won a combined $13.6 million judgment on Sept. 15 after a Torrance jury concluded that the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District failed to prevent the abuse. The jury found the district negligent for allowing Garry Poe, a longtime English teacher and celebrated baseball coach at Rolling Hills High School, to groom and sexually assault students, particularly during an annual five-week Europe trip he chaperoned after graduation. The school district will likely pay at least $6.46 million of the verdict, which will be divided among the women.

The women, now in their 50s and 60s, sued the district in 2022 under aliases and recounted a pattern of grooming, exploitation, and abuse during a four-week trial. They described the Europe trips as alcohol-fueled excursions where Poe, who taught and mentored them in high school, engaged in unwanted sexual behavior. One woman, Kim, testified that Poe flirted with her, questioned her about her sexual activity, and sexually assaulted her when she babysat for his children. On the Europe trip, she said she was repeatedly summoned to his room and “in survival mode” while enduring multiple assaults at age 18. Other women recounted similar abuse at age 17, including unwanted intercourse and oral sex.

One woman, Michelle, described attempting to resist Poe in his hotel room, after which a fellow chaperone, teacher Jerry Kestenberg, told her she had misunderstood the encounter and framed it as “fatherly” behavior. Kestenberg died in 1987. Plaintiffs’ attorney Daniel Varon compared Poe to a “wolf” who targeted young women, manipulated trust, and inflicted lifelong trauma.

Poe, 82, denied any wrongdoing while the women were enrolled, claiming his relationships with the three women occurred after graduation. The district’s lawyers acknowledged Poe’s actions were “despicable” but argued the abuse largely took place off-campus and after graduation, outside the school’s supervision.

The women sought nearly $100 million in damages; the district suggested awards between $600,000 and $850,000 per woman. The jury ultimately awarded $3.4 million each to three women and $1.7 million each to two others. While the district emphasized the women had gone on to lead successful lives, plaintiffs’ attorneys said the verdict validated their clients’ experiences and recognized the district’s responsibility in enabling the abuse.

Poe began his tenure as the head baseball coach at Rolling Hills High School in 1970, becoming coach of the year after his team won the 1972 CIF title. He won a second title in 1991 and was widely regarded as a mentor to thousands of student-athletes over three decades. Yet the jury’s decision underscored how his stature within the school community shielded him from scrutiny, allowing years of predatory behavior to go unchecked.