Redmond, Ore. – A registered sex offender and husband of a former high school equestrian team coach for Ridgeview High School in Redmond, Oregon, was allegedly volunteering at various team events, according to multiple sources.
This discovery comes amid further investigation stemming from other scrutiny over the handling by officials with the Redmond School District and OHSET of strongly disputed allegations of drug and alcohol use and the subsequent suspension of several student-athletes by the team’s coaches and OHSET’s Central District officials.
The teen girls obtained negative drug and alcohol test results from an independent certified lab– leading school officials to distance themselves from OHSET’s handling of the situation.
Following the disputed allegations, two of the girls reported that they had transferred from Ridgeview High School in Redmond back into an online school program they attended during the pandemic.
The increased scrutiny resulted in numerous tips being provided to Equestrian Media Group and growing allegations of potential ethics violations by coaches for Ridgeview High School’s OHSET team and other teams within OHSET in Central Oregon.
The Oregon Government Ethics Commission had also opened a preliminary investigation tied to the school district and OHSET, although the agency’s director, Susan Myers, could not provide specifics to confirm whether their investigation was tied to the allegations.
Equestrian Media Group then made the discovery last week that the husband of a recent coach for the Ridgeview High School OHSET team is currently a registered sex offender, according to records available from the Oregon State Police. The former coach now serves as an official with OHSET’s Central District, which covers Central Oregon.
Peter Len Shirley, 65, was identified in those records along with a history of public indecency and sex abuse charges spanning several decades, including felony charges in Deschutes County in both 1999 and 2006. According to OSP’s registry website, which lists Shirley, it only contains “offenders classified as Level 3 Sex Offenders (who present the highest risk of reoffending and require the widest range of notification).”
The Level 3 designation is made by the Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision (BoPPPS), the PSRB, or the supervisory authority.
Shirley was reportedly an active parent volunteer for the team, at least between 2019 through 2022. Equestrian Media Group could not confirm if Shirley was still active despite his wife’s current status as an official for OHSET’s Central District.
Shirley’s criminal charges date back to 1980’s. He was convicted twice in 1984 on charges of public indecency. In May of 1986, Shirley was again convicted of public indecency. The details of those convictions could not be found in Oregon court records.
In 1992, Shirley was convicted by a jury of public indecency in Klamath County. He was ordered to serve three years of probation and attend a sex offender treatment program. The details of that conviction had not yet been obtained.
Later that year, Shirley was charged by Lane County prosecutors in Eugene on a single county of felony sex abuse in the first degree. A week later, prosecutors downgraded the charges to a single count of sex abuse in the third degree, to which Shirley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 180 days in jail and five years probation.
Shirley then faced multiple allegations of probation violations in that case, including just months after his conviction, in March of 1993, and again in 1994 and 1996. Two amended sentences on the court record in 1995 and 1996 show Shirley was twice sentenced to an additional 30 days of jail time and a one-year extension of probation.
In 1999, Shirley was again convicted of public indecency in Deschutes County on a charge of public indecency. He was ordered to 90 days in jail and no contact with minors among the terms, although it appears he was later granted house arrest with electronic monitoring after 16 days in jail.
Shirley’s probation was extended twice, the last time in 2004 until November of that year, after failing to complete a sex offender treatment program on multiple occasions.
In 2006, Shirley was again arrested in Deschutes County on three counts of public indecency, ultimately pleading guilty to two counts, which were charged as a felony due to his past convictions of indecency and sex abuse.
The court sentenced Shirley to 19 months in state prison and five years post-prison supervision. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender.
Court documents confirmed that all of the original charges Shirley pleaded guilty to involved three separate incidents, one in January and two in February of 2006.
According to several sources and the organization’s website listing district officers, Shirley’s wife, Tami Shirley, now serves as a media representative for OHSET’s Central District following her recent role as a coach for Ridgeview High School.
Equestrian Media Group then learned from several sources that Shirley had allegedly been volunteering at OHSET activities for several years, including being present for team meetings at his residence when his wife was a coach.
However, they said that Tami Shirley has provided a lot of help and support to OHSET and equestrian athletes over the years, which has been widely appreciated.
Those sources, who would not yet speak publically out of fear of retribution by OHSET, stated that they were never aware that Shirley was a registered sex offender. They went on to confirm that Shirley would often volunteer at OHSET competitions, although nobody had been made aware.
The parents also said that girls on the team would also practice at the equestrian property where Shirley resides, at least while his wife was a coach for the equestrian team for Ridgeview High School.
Equestrian Media Group confirmed the role of each source, which included two parents of OHSET athletes, one who was still active in the program and another who graduated from Ridgeview High School in 2022.
Another source included a now-graduated student from Central Oregon who would only speak on the condition of anonymity due to their current status with a local horse group whose officials are also tied to or serve as top officials in OHSET.
The parent of another now-former equestrian athlete from Ridgeview High School also confirmed that Shirley and his wife were present on a team trail ride near Tumalo State Park in 2021, going so far as to detail a specific incident during that ride in which another parent and husband of the now-current OHSET district chair and coach, McKenzie Hughes, was severely injured after being bucked off his horse.
However, Shirley’s volunteer work was not as a coach or team advisor, they said.
While it could not be confirmed if Shirley was under any current court-ordered restrictions, we did reach out to the Redmond School District to see if Shirley, as school districts often prohibit registered sex offenders from school activities and property.
The Portland Public School, for example, states they check the sex offender registry under its policy and procedures.
While OHSET does not appear to expressly state that sex offenders are restricted from volunteering, one of their policies indicates that background checks are conducted on all volunteers.
OHSET’s State Chair, Teresa Hoffman, did not respond to an email seeking comment. OHSET had not responded to multiple attempts in early March seeking comment regarding the disputed allegations made against the suspended athletes.
Since a single response was made weeks earlier regarding OHSET’s suspension of three Ridgeview High School students by the Redmond School District, all of our requests for comment have been ignored, except responses required under Oregon Public Records Law to this publication’s ongoing public records requests.
Last week, Equestrian Media Group filed a petition with the Deschutes County District Attorney after the Redmond School District failed to acknowledge a request for a fee waiver as required under Oregon Public Records Law in its replies to this publication’s records requests, let alone consider a fee reduction in the alternative.
An attorney for the Redmond School District argued against any public interest argument in this publication’s records request this week.
The Bend LaPine School District lost an almost identical petition filed by The Bend Bulletin, according to a November 2021 order from the Deschutes County District Attorney.
This is a developing story you can count on us to keep you updated on. If you have information on this or another story you’d like to share, please get in touch with us.
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