Fired Coach Headed Back to Court

The now-fired St. Margaret’s football coach caught with drugs last summer will have a preliminary hearing next month.

Charles Christopher Spann was in  in Newport Beach Thursday for a pre-trial hearing. Judge Derek Johnson set his preliminary hearing, where the court will determine whether there is enough evidence to take him to trial, for Feb. 9.

Orange County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Spann in August while sitting in a parked car in San Juan Capistrano. They found 2 grams of marijuana and five Vicodin pills, as well as a falsified California driver’s license with his picture.

The felony charges – possession of a controlled substance and forgery of public or corporate seals – are separate from earlier charges of possessing and cultivating marijuana in his San Juan Capistrano home .

In that case, Spann – along with Sean Patrick Coen and Robert Raymond Hendricks – of possessing marijuana, a misdemeanor.

Coen and Hendricks at Santa Margarita and Spann at were able to keep their jobs through the football season, even though officials at both schools were aware of their Sept. 15 guilty plea.

In December 2010, sheriff's deputies discovered an extensive marijuana growing system in the garage of the trio’s apartment. The raid netted three mature plants, 229 immature plants, 32 pot clones, five bags of dried marijuana totaling more than a pound, a "pay-owe" ledger listing medical marijuana dispensaries, and a lighting and watering system.

Spann, also known as Chachi, was hired in 2010 as an offensive and defensive line coach at St. Margaret's. As a high school student, he played for current Santa Margarita head coach Harry Welch when he coached at Canyon High School in the Santa Clarita area.

St. Margaret's school officials fired Spann Dec. 5, upon learning of the new charges stemming from his August arrest.