BHS teacher and football coach Tim Clark 

BRANFORD — Independent investigations conducted by the Suwannee County School District and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement came to the same conclusion: Branford coach Tim Clark did nothing wrong.

Clark was suspended by the school district in May when the Suwannee County Sheriff’s Office received an anonymous letter alleging Clark had been having inappropriate relationships with students.

Following an investigation by the FDLE into the allegations, the State Attorney’s Office for the Third Judicial Circuit declined to proceed with charges against Clark.

In a June 17 letter, Assistant State Attorney Jamie Tyndal explained that decision, stating that none of Clark’s conduct was criminal and that all of the alleged victims denied the allegations.

The school district’s investigation, conducted by an independent investigator from Tallahassee, also cleared Clark.

“Both ends of it, both pieces of it came back clear, which was good,” Superintendent Ted Roush said.

“Obviously, the thing that is problematic in this day and time of all the different avenues that people have with social media and being able to spread rumor and those types of things, it’s unfortunate for him that he and his family had to go through this.

“But if there are allegations that are going to be raised and ends up being cleared, hopefully that will put an end to those speculations.”

Those rumors became allegations of Clark having inappropriate relationships with current and former Branford High students, according to FDLE’s investigative report.

The anonymous letter called not only for Clark’s firing but also the administration at BHS for “the safety of ALL students.”

According to the letter, the administration had failed to report allegations of misconduct over a period of nearly two years, citing incidents from August 2017 through January 2019.

Among the allegations was Clark touching a student, who was in a weightlifting class, on her inner thigh while she was straddled the bench for a lift. According to the letter, Branford Assistant Principal Angela Wood didn’t report Clark, instead removing the student from the class.

During FDLE’s investigation, it was determined Wood wasn’t an assistant principal at the time and through a search of school records, a guidance counselor changed the student’s schedule not Wood. The student also denied the allegation, stating she asked to be removed from the class after being placed in the class by error, according to the documents.

The letter also alleged that a witness stumbled upon Clark and a former Branford student in his truck in the parking lot at Florida Gateway College during the summer of 2017.

According to the investigation, the witness said that the girl’s head was in Clark’s lap and that Clark admitted he was “doing something he shouldn’t be dong.”

The alleged victim said she was talking with Clark and they worried “how it was going to look” when the witness approached the truck so she “hid” with her face in her hands and bent over her lap in the passenger seat, the investigative report states.

According to the report, Clark said in an interview with investigators that he told the witness “he knew it looked like he was doing something he should not be doing,” and stating a second time that it “looked bad…that I’m here doing something that looks very inappropriate.”

The letter also alleged another report of an inappropriate relationship between Clark and a student this January. Once again, though, the report states the alleged victim denied any inappropriate relationship, adding school administration questioned her about the subject months ago.

The report also states another alleged victim denied the letter’s allegations that Clark’s wife, Erin Clark and also a teacher at the school, confronted her about a relationship between the coach and the victim. The victim told investigators that “she never had any negative words with Erin Clark” while also denouncing the claims of the relationship.

The investigation’s conclusion was that “no sexual relationship occurred” between Clark and the alleged victims.

FDLE’s investigation also includes that some of the allegations had previously been investigated by the SCSO and deemed unfounded.