Former Webster Central School District Coach Kali Watkins has filed suit against the Webster Central School District, the Town of Webster and the Webster Police Department after he was tried and acquitted on a rape charge.
Watkins was the former girls’ basketball coach for the district. In 2019 he was tried and found not guilty of raping a 14-year-old student in a locker room. In the suit, Watkins charges that the prosecution was malicious, driven by personal animosity of members of the Webster Police Department and Webster School Superintendent Carmen Gumina. The suit says police failed to interview witnesses who could have provided information favorable to him, and interviewed only one member of the JV girls’ basketball team. That player was the daughter of a former Webster police chief.
The Webster Police Department declined to comment.