Former Freedom High track and girls cross country coach Dwight Lamont Smith was booked into the Hillsborough County jail Monday night on sexual assault charges after being accused of having sex with a student on trips to Gainesville and Titusville on consecutive weekends.
Smith, 48 and a resident of Wesley Chapel, faces charges of sexual assault by a custodian and sexual battery of a person aged 12-18. His bond was set at $150,000.
According to the Gainesville Police Deportment report, Smith and his cross country team were in Gainesville Sept. 18 for a meet and staying overnight. At dinner, Smith provided a 17-year-old girl, a student at Freedom and member of the track team, with vodka and orange juice and made her drink it, according to the report. He also gave her a key to his hotel room so she could receive “counseling”. When the girl showed up at his room, he gave her more alcohol until she became intoxicated, and then had sex with her around 7 p.m.
Smith left the room to meet some school alumni for dinner, and told the girl to stay in the room. She did not stay, however. Smith texted the girl later that night after dinner, telling her to return to the room. When the girl entered the room, Smith was naked. He then provided more alcohol to the girl, and they had sex again around 11 p.m.
The following weekend, the two again had sex in a hotel room in Titusville, where the team was competing in another meet.
According to a Tampa Police Department report, on Nov. 11, Smith showed up at her house in a red car, unannounced. Her parents were not home, and he told her he missed her and wanted to come in and have sex. But after seeing her two cats sitting in the window of the house, he said he could not go in because he was allergic to cats. Instead, they sat in her car and kissed as he fondled her. She said she did not want to have sex in the car, and told him she was on her period, so he left.
She then realized that their relationship was wrong, the report states, and reported it to the Freedom principal Kevin Stephenson on Nov. 12, who immediately took her to the School Resource Officer.
Smith, who was a teacher’s assistant in the school’s Exceptional Student Education program, was escorted out of school and has been fired.
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