BUXTON, Maine — A former Bonny Eagle cheerleading coach accused of having sex with a student is worried about the damage those claims have done.
Nick Perry, 21, worked as the cheerleading coach at Bonny Eagle High School for just a few months when, in January, he resigned from the school after he was arrested and charged with gross sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact.
Those charges were dropped on Monday.
“Mentally, it broke me,” Perry said in an interview with CBS 13. “But physically, I just had to keep going. I couldn’t find anyone to employ me, I couldn’t find a job, I was having people say and write nasty comments about me that weren’t true at all, that were completely fabricated.”
Investigators alleged Perry had had an inappropriate sexual relationship with an 18-year-old student.
Citing an uncooperative victim, the district attorney has now dismissed the charges.
Perry told CBS 13 that he did have a relationship with that student when he was a student himself, but didn’t want to talk about what, if anything, happened while he was a coach.
Perry graduated from Bonny Eagle in 2014.
Perry said he made some people angry when he was coaching and they made allegations based on their anger.
“They were definitely unfair, because I didn’t assault anybody, because assault is a pretty heavy word especially with the word sexually attached to it, and people tend to not take that too lightly, and I understand why, definitely sexual assault was a far stretch,” Perry said.
The school’s interim superintendent told CBS 13 in a statement, “I must respect our justice system. SAD 6 will follow the law and district policies and do whatever is necessary to protect our students.”
Perry, who has been cheering since he was a toddler and loved his job, said he’s ready to move on — but has no interest in working in a school or coaching again.