NORWELL - A former Quincy man who served time in prison for his role in a cross-country drug ring is now free and has been coaching youth football here. Norwell selectmen have asked that he be removed immediately.
Despite a league-wide rule requiring coaches and other volunteers to pass a criminal background check, 40-year-old Daniel P. Macauley was on the sidelines at practice Tuesday as an assistant coach for the Schooners, Norwell Youth Football’s youngest team.
According to court records, Macauley, who now lives in Norwell, pleaded guilty in August 2005 to conspiracy to possess marijuana with intent to distribute, and was sentenced last December to six months in federal prison and three years’ probation.
A spokeswoman for the U.S Attorney’s office in Boston, Samantha Martin, said Macauley was incarcerated last December and has since been released.
Macauley did not return phone messages left at his house for two days.
Norwell selectmen urged the president of the youth football league, Andrew ‘‘Gerry’’ Garvey, to seek Macauley’s immediate resignation so children in the football program are not ‘‘exposed to an individual with a record of this type.’’
‘‘Possession of marijuana is a serious crime, but possession with intent to distribute is infinitely worse,’’ selectmen said in a letter to Garvey that was signed by Chairman John Mariano. ‘‘We need to show children that there are consequences for your actions and that you will be held accountable for your transgressions.’’
Garvey could not be reached last night for a response to the selectmen’s letter.
Macauley is the second coach on the South Shore allowed to keep his job this fall after facing drug charges.
A 17-year-old Plymouth South Youth Football cheerleading coach was allowed to keep her post while free on $500 cash bail after pleading innocent last month to charges of unarmed robbery and assault and battery.
Elisa S. Callahan later resigned after parents learned she is on probation for marijuana possession and is accused of driving the getaway car in a gas station robbery.
In an interview on Tuesday, Garvey, the your football president, said Macauley was at practice this week and, like every other football and cheerleading coach, had passed a criminal background check.
Garvey, who is a a Boston police officer, said a coworker performed the checks, and said none of his coaches is a threat to the children in the program.
‘‘My kids are out here playing.’’ he said. ‘‘They’re the most precious thing and I wouldn’t do anything to put them at risk.’’
Garvey declined to make public the results of the criminal background checks the league runs on coaches, and noted that some coaches may have, as youths, committed less-serious crimes, such as drunken driving.
Sex offenders, drug dealers and anyone with a history of domestic abuse would be banned from coaching immediately, he said. The same would be true for anyone with a criminal case pending, Garvey said.
According to prosecutors, Macauley was part of a network of street-level marijuana distributors who sold in the Boston area.
Court papers show Macauley’s lawyer, Kevin Reddington, asked for a sentence of probation, because his client had medical problems, had treated his drug addiction and was remorseful.
Prior to purchasing his Norwell home in May 2004, records show Macauley lived at 16 Roach St. in Quincy, the address listed for the drug-case defendant at the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Garvey, selectmen and the Norwell School Department, which owns the playing fields where youth football teams practice and play, were told of Macauley’s criminal history last week in a letter from an anonymous tipster.
When asked by The Patriot Ledger about the letter, Mariano initially said his office would not intervene because the tip was anonymous and because the Norwell Youth Football League is not a town-sponsored program.
‘‘In this case, the football program that’s run completely outside of town government, it’s up to them to decide if something needs to be done,’’ Mariano said in a prior interview.
In his letter to Garvey, Mariano advised the league president to remove Macauley as a coach and adopt new policies to prevent similar situations in the future.
Your Views
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He will more than likely have to leave. Our town gets fired up about these things.
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