Bishop Gorman head coach Kenny Sanchez applauds his players as they score again over Liberty during their high school football state championship game at Sam Boyd Stadium on Saturday, Dec. 3, 2016.
Friday, May 5, 2017 | 4:52 p.m.
The ex-girlfriend of suspended Bishop Gorman High football coach Kenny Sanchez has recanted her domestic violence claim that Sanchez struck her during a Christmas Day dispute over the custody of their shared son.
“He never punched, pushed, scratched or grabbed me on December 25, 2016, December 17, 2016, or at any other time,” Brooke Stewart wrote in a sworn affidavit last month with Sanchez’s attorney, Ross Goodman.
Sanchez allegedly hit his former girlfriend around the face, grabbed her neck and pulled her hair, according to a criminal complaint filed on Jan. 23.
But, as she later explained in the affidavit, “I was acting under extreme grief due to the feeling of the loss of my son on Christmas for the first time and the anniversary of my mother’s death that I reported something that was untrue.”
Sanchez has been suspended by Gorman pending the outcome of the domestic battery trial on May 30. Goodman is urging the District Attorney’s Office to dismiss the case, but prosecutor Lisa Luzaich told the Associated Press she will continue pursuing it.
“Contrary to my report to the police, Kenny simply came over on Christmas Day to pick up (our son) and left without any physical altercation,” Stewart explained.
Stewart on April 21 gave a similar description to the prosecutor’s office, Goodman said. In an email to Goodman that was provided to the Sun, Stewart wrote that she told the prosecutor she was very depressed and dealing with anxiety, and that she made a bad judgment call by making up the allegations.
Goodman says photos police took Dec. 25 when called to Stewart’s residence don’t align with the story she gave. He says there’s no evidence to support the charge.
“(The complaint) is that he pummeled her, beat her face; he pushed her down and grabbed her. This isn’t where someone gets pushed — this is vicious battery,” Goodman said. “... You’d have some redness, you’d have some swelling. But you don’t see any of that because it didn’t happen.”
Ray Brewer can be reached at 702-990-2662 or [email protected]. Follow Ray on Twitter at twitter.com/raybrewer21
