CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – Clay County parents are questioning the school district’s vetting process after a volunteer wrestling coach who worked with students and had a past record of convictions was arrested as part of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office’s undercover sting “Operation Checkmate.”
The operation netted more than two dozen men accused of attempting to solicit minors online, including Mikal DeToro.
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Tawnya Darnell’s son wrestled at Wilkinson Junior High, where DeToro volunteered as a wrestling coach.
“This guy was spending upwards of two, three hours a day with my kids after school,” she said. “How did this man go from a wrestling coach with 14, 15‑year‑old kids, and now he’s in jail for some really disturbing things?”
Her son said DeToro never made comments to him personally, but she said DeToro took pictures and videos of wrestlers while they practiced.
“Originally, you think, ‘Ok that’s a coach. Maybe he’s trying to take a video of them to show them how to correct their form,’ or things like that but as a parent now looking back, I’m like, ‘Well, what happened to those pictures? Where are those videos? I don’t know. I have no answer for that,’” she said.
Sheriff T.K. Waters said DeToro drove himself to a prearranged location “with the intention of engaging in sex acts with a boy in his Jeep Wrangler,” according to video and police statements.
While JSO arrested him on April 30, Darnell said she never received a message from the school or a representative about DeToro.
Court and police records show DeToro has a criminal history involving incidents with minors. A 2008 arrest for simple battery — which a court record says involved grabbing a victim’s arm and pulling it behind the victim’s back — resulted in a no‑contest plea and placement in a pretrial diversion program, court records show.
A 2019 police report said DeToro was on active felony probation while volunteering at a church that worked with a school and that he put a teenage victim in a headlock; the victim’s mother intervened, but even then he tried to keep them from leaving, the report said.
News4JAX attempted to contact three locations where DeToro volunteered or worked and reached voicemail at each and received no responses.
One of the people we tried to contact was Nate Warmouth, the principal of Orange Park High School, but he was the principal of Wilkinsen Junior High when DeToro volunteered there.
After contacting the school district, we learned the district’s volunteer policy distinguishes between Level 1 and Level 2 volunteers. Level 1 volunteers, like DeToro, are checked against national and state sex‑offender and predator registries, are not allowed to be alone with students and must remain under the supervision of a certified employee. Level 2 volunteers undergo more extensive criminal background checks, including FBI and local database checks.
“To me, at this point, that’s kind of a joke,” Darnell said of the Level 1 designation. “If I were to take my child on a school bus to a field trip, I would have to have a fingerprint, Level‑2 background check.”
“I guess we don’t know who our kids are around at this point,” Darnell said. “They’re volunteers in the school’s eyes, and I don’t what that means moving forward until the school board has more answers for us.”
Clay County Schools issued a statement to News4JAX saying DeToro is permanently barred from all district campuses and from volunteering in any capacity. The district said it is conducting an annual review of volunteer policies and practices for the upcoming school year.