Warren cop gets nearly five years for sex with student

A 63-year-old ex-cop was ordered to serve at least 57 months to 15 years in prison for having sex with a 16-year-old female student whom he knew from her school.
Dale Malesh of Roseville was sentenced following an emotional hearing in Macomb County Circuit Court in Mount Clemens that included a scathing letter from the victim who criticized police, prosecutors, fellow students, the news media and social media for their roles in the case. The victim opposed charges against her former lover.
“I am saddened, sickened and from what has happened, not from the relationship that Dale and I shared but from the negative attention that has surrounded the situation,” she said in a letter read by victim advocate Johanna Delp. “I have been teased and harassed via social media, followed throughout the halls by fellow students with video cameras. I have felt intimidated by those in authority working the case. I felt more victimized by them than anyone else. I’m supposed to be the victim here and have been treated somewhat as a criminal.
She said police detectives demanded her telephone, followed her to school to deliver a subpoena and had her telephone “tapped.” She was interviewed about details of the allegations by two male investigators instead of females, she said.
“Extreme measures were used to strong arm me into cooperating,” she said.
She said she was never coerced, pressured or forced by Malesh into the sexual acts, which officials estimated numbered about 50.
“The letter says it all,” said Nedhal Malesh, the defendant’s ex-wife who attended the sentencing with Malesh’s two adult children.
The victim sat in the courtroom with her mother and a handful of teenage girls, including the 16-year-old victim and her mother in a case from the same school involving former ninth-grade basketball coach Derek Knoll, 24, of Warren. Knoll was sentenced Thursday to six months in jail and five years probation after pleading guilty to four counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct.
Police learned about the incidents involving Knoll from text messages with Malesh’s victim.
The girl called the case “a travesty of justice” that Malesh was charged even though she was 16, the age of consent for sex. He was prosecuted under a law that prevents sexual relations between someone in authority who uses his or her position to exploit a student aged 16 to 18.
The victim met Malesh while he still was a Warren police officer assigned as a school resource officer in the Warren Woods Public Schools. Malesh began helping her when she was 11 and being bullied at Warren Woods Middle School. That help continued at Warren Woods-Tower High School, where she completed her junior year last year.
Malesh pleaded guilty to 14 counts of third-degree criminal sexual conduct.
The sentence also followed a graphic description of acts between Malesh and the girl gleaned from text-message transcripts by Assistant Macomb Prosecutor Nicole Blank.
Blank accused Malesh of “grooming” the girl since middle school and “corrupting” and “manipulating” her into engaging in a variety of sexual escapades, including trying to indoctrinate her into his “swinger lifestyle.”
“She was vulnerable,” she said. “He worked his way into her life.”
Her nickname for him was “daddy,” Blank said.
Malesh knew his behavior was wrong by telling the girl in a text, “This … sucks. It (their relationship) would never be acceptable.”
She accused Malesh of violating the cop “code” to “serve and protect.”
“He had the utmost responsibility of taking care of children,” she said.
She also criticized his inability to admit to wrongdoing. He pleaded guilty after losing legal arguments to dismissed the charges based on the fact that he had retired from the job, although he remained as a volunteer at the school.
The sentencing hearing was delayed for about three hours after Judge Mary Chrzanowski balked at her prior agreement to sentence Malesh at the bottom of the sentencing guideline range. But despite to appear to mull a longer term, she decided to stick to her promise.
“I have respect for you as a police officer. But I have no respect for your behavior,” she told Malesh. “This is very disgusting to me.”
Malesh’s attorney Steve Kaplan said, “We are pleased with the graciousness of the court to sentence the defendant at the lower end of the guidelines.”
Kaplan said he hopes the Michigan Department of Corrections will provide extra protection for Malesh in prison due to his ex-cop role. He was an officer in Sturgis for 20 years and in Warren for 13 years.

“My client hopes to be an ideal prisoner and expects to become a contributing member of society when he is released,” he said