Schools Chief Faces Charges -- Issaquah's Superintendent Accused Of Harassing Doctor

BELLEVUE - Issaquah School Superintendent William Stewart, romantically involved with another man's wife, made threatening and obscene phone calls to the husband to try to break up the marriage, King County prosecutors say.

Prosecutors allege Stewart left the calls on Dr. David Minehan's home answering machine and sent angry anonymous letters to him and his wife when the two appeared to be reconciling.

The charges - four counts of harassment - filed yesterday in Bellevue District Court, constitute gross misdemeanors that carry a maximum sentence of a year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Stewart says he is innocent, and that he and his attorney "have actually found a person who admitted she wrote the letters and did the hangup calls." On this evidence, Stewart will ask that a related civil case in Superior Court be dismissed Sept. 13.

Stewart's attorney, John Bergmann, said the woman had sworn under oath in a deposition that she was responsible for two of the phone calls and two of the letters.

Minehan and his wife, Joyce, have since divorced and he is suing Stewart, claiming the harassing calls and letters invaded their privacy and contributed to the breakup of his family.

Stewart, 56, of Bellevue, has been superintendent of the Issaquah School District since 1992.

"At this point I'm uncertain what course we'll take," said Issaquah School Board President David Irons, who had not seen the charges or talked with Stewart as of last night.

When the civil suit was filed against Stewart a year ago, also alleging that Stewart made obscene and threatening calls, Irons said the board regarded it as a personal matter and took no action. Now that criminal charges have been filed, he added, it's likely the board will view the case in a different light.

Ernie Simas, who is running for Irons' seat this fall, said the board should ask Stewart to take a leave of absence until the case has been heard. "His attention isn't going to be totally focused until this is resolved," Simas said.

Simas was critical of the board's decision earlier this summer to extend Stewart's contract by two years. He said the board should have waited until the civil suit was resolved before making the move.

Prosecutors say a voice-analysis expert has determined to a "99 percent degree of certainty" that the voice of the caller matches Stewart's.

The incidents occurred over eight months from mid-1993 to early 1994, but prosecutors delayed filing charges until the voice analysis was completed.

Stewart said the criminal charges came as a complete surprise, and that last year Minehan's attorney was unable to match Stewart's fingerprints to those found on the letters mailed to Minehan.

"I don't know how to deal with this," Stewart said. "This is just an angry man" who's upset over his wife.

Prosecutors say Joyce Minehan became involved with Stewart in 1991 when they both worked for the Kent School District. She and Minehan, a Kent obstetrician who lives in Bellevue, separated and began divorce proceedings in mid-1993. The husband, who did not know about Stewart, struck up a relationship with a woman in Phoenix.

The Minehans eventually tabled their divorce plans and began living together again with their two daughters. Prosecutors allege Stewart then began his harassment.

Deputy Prosecutor Carol Anderson contends that soon after the Minehans got back together, Stewart gave two sealed envelopes, with no return addresses, to a former Kent school employee who was living in Phoenix. At his request, she allegedly sent them July 1, 1993.

Four days later the Minehans received envelopes postmarked from Phoenix. Each contained a vulgar diatribe about David Minehan's apparent affair and was signed simply "M."

After several calls, the Minehans began living in separate houses, at Joyce Minehan's suggestion, to make the caller think they had split up, prosecutors said. Not only did the calls continue to come to David Minehan's unlisted number, but on Dec. 4, 100 minutes of phone calls were logged between Stewart's house and the place where Joyce Minehan was living.

Joyce Minehan never told her husband she had been seeing Stewart and did not cooperate with a private detective he hired.

Many of the hang-up calls to the doctor's unlisted number were from public phones in South and East King County.

One of the last calls contained references to the doctor's route to work and the type of car he was driving. Another warned he would "have to take the consequences" for having an affair.

Charges allege Joyce Minehan also received an obscene letter at Sunrise Elementary School, where she worked. The writer hinted that he or she was thinking about telling tales out of school, as it were.

Minehan's private investigator began focusing on Stewart in March 1994, after Stewart's wife contacted the physician and told him their respective spouses were seeing each other.

The investigator observed and sometimes photographed Stewart and Joyce Minehan meeting, embracing and kissing in a church parking lot, according to charges.

Stewart pleaded guilty in January to violating an anti-harassment order Minehan filed against him. He had been in Joyce Minehan's residence while her daughters were there. He received a deferred sentence.

Stewart is to be arraigned Sept. 6.