PEORIA, AZ — Former Peoria High School basketball coach Patrick Battillo, also known as prominent Valley sports fan "Mr. ORNG," was officially fired from the Peoria Unified School District Thursday, more than two weeks after his arrest on charges related to child sex crimes.
The school board voted unanimously to fire him, backdating his dismissal to two days after the arrest.
According to the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Battillo is accused of using Snapchat to contact at least one male student, offering him money in exchange for sexually explicit videos and pictures.
During the school board meeting, member Heather Rooks apologized to the families affected.
"I just want to publicly apologize, again, to the families that this individual committed to their children and I want to say 'thank you' to the principal for reporting this individual to the police she did a great job of doing that," Rooks said.
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Some local parents gathered to voice their concerns outside the meeting, saying some of the boys on the basketball team are not doing well following the news and have "lost their belief in adults meant to protect and guide them."
The parents also said they feel like the school district hasn't been transparent with them as far as updates on the situation.
They said they want major change so this doesn't happen again, especially since the coach who Battillo replaced, William Roberts, was also just on trial for sex crime charges.
"We want accountability, and what does accountability look like to us? We want them to clean house. We want the suspension of the Peoria High School basketball program until the coaching staff is replaced and there is a commitment to placing safe and wholesome adults in front of our future basketball players," said Black Mothers Forum Founder and CEO Janelle Wood. "We will not go quietly away so that you can sweep this under the rug again like you did when Coach [William Roberts] was arrested on sex crimes a few years back and who is on trial as we speak for those crimes."
Roberts was just found not guilty on all six counts of sexual contact with a minor Thursday in court.
He did tell jurors during the trial that he did have sex with two of the people involved in the case, but claimed it happened after they turned 18 years old.
Roberts had worked at the Peoria Unified School District for more than a decade.
According to a district spokesperson, Roberts had been a substitute teacher, instructional assistant, coach, and teacher.
"At the time he was hired, he received a background check and was issued an IVP fingerprint clearance card that was regularly renewed during his employment," said the spokesperson.
"If there had been additional flags to his fingerprint clearance, we would have received those updates from ADE or DPS," they added.
The district told ABC15 that Roberts was put on leave in December 2019 before he resigned in 2020.
