OC Swim Coach Sent Back To Jail For Sexually Assaulting Another Underage Student
NEWPORT BEACH (CBSLA.com) — An Orange County swim coach who's already served jail time for having sex with a 15-year-old student was sentenced Friday for having sex with another 15-year-old girl.
Todd Robert Sousa, who owned Swim Venture Inc. with his wife, pleaded guilty in June to six felony counts of lewd acts on a child age 14 or 15 and a count of unlawful sex, all of which are felonies. The 38-year-old has been sentenced to 16 months in jail, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
Investigators learned of this second incident after the swim school student told investigators last summer she had sex with Sousa at a hotel near Disneyland. The coach and father was arrested a month after having been released from jail for having had sex with another 15-year-old girl.
In that case, Sousa picked up a 15-year-old girl and her friend from Irvine Spectrum and drove them to his office. He gave both teenagers alcohol and then had sex with one of the girls in another room while her friend waited. He plead guilty in October 2011 and served part of a 16-month sentence. He was ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
The Laguna Hills resident is the son-in-law of the former city mayor and retired council member Joel Lautenschleger, who was in court Friday, along with Sousa's wife, to support Sousa.
O.C. Superior Court Judge Andre Manssourian handed down a sentence less than the three-year cap, acknowledging that Sousa participated in rehabilitation during his first stint in prison. However, he told Sousa that his crimes were "`very predatory" and recalled how Sousa had the parents of two girls drop them off at Disneyland before the defendant and victims went to a motel to have sex.
"Think of the irony of that," Manssourian said. "And then to greet them with sex toys?"
The judge also noted the "irony" that the parents had been paying Sousa as the swim coach for the girls. "They are literally paying you for what you did to them," Manssourian said, adding the "violation of trust" was a "major factor" in the punishment.
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