This week we cast the naughty spotlight on three men who teach or coach high school students and have been sentenced, convicted and booked respectively for sexploits involving underage girls.
One is a former Santa Ana High School science teacher who just got a year in county jail for having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl student.
An ex-football coach at University High School in Irvine copped to trying to communicate with someone he believed to be a minor girl for sex.
A now fired “School of Rock” music teacher in San Juan Capistrano is accused of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl but authorities fear there may be more victims.
Alvar Albert Gonzalez, 47, of Santa Ana, received his sentence Friday, when he was also directed to serve three years of formal probation and to register as a sex offender for life. He pleaded guilty in June to statutory rape and possession of child pornography as Santa Ana police detectives had discovered he’d had sex with the girl at least nine times during school lunch breaks in 2013 and that he’d shot a sexually explicit video of her. The investigation began after Santa Ana High administrators were told in 2014 that Gonzalez, who’d taught there since 2001, had kissed a different female student. He was immediately removed from the classroom and placed on administrative leave. Gonzalez was fired when the subsequent police investigation uncovered images of young-looking girls on his media storage devices, including some of the victim.
Jeremy Osso, 39, of Costa Mesa, pleaded guilty in San Diego County earlier this month to a felony count of sending harmful matter with the intention of seducing a minor. He’s due back in court Sept. 13 for sentencing, according to the San Diego County District Attorney’s office. The since-fired defensive coordinator for Uni High’s varsity football team and Irvine High School instructional assistant was arrested in a June sting by the multi-agency, San Diego-area Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Osso, who was Costa Mesa High School’s head football coach from 2006-11, admits he was trying to arrange a sex date with a girl he met online. But here’s the thing: he was actually communicating with a police detective posing as the girl. With Osso’s guilty plea, counts of attempting to solicit child pornography were dropped.
Christian Hernandez 30, of Rancho Santa Margarita was booked into the Orange County Jail Thursday on suspicion of sexual assault of a minor, and he is due in court today. Investigators from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s Special Victims Detail (SVD) recently received a report from a 17-year-old girl, who says she was 15 when the inappropriate conduct by Hernandez happened, states an OCSD press advisory. A second female, who is now 20, claimed Hernandez did the same thing with her when she was 16, but as of Friday he had not yet been charged on that allegation, according to the sheriff’s department. The SVD detectives believe the incidents happened between two and five years ago. “The suspect worked as an independent music teacher at the Los Rios School of Rock and also provides private lessons outside the school,” states the OCSD advisory. Noting that Hernandez had worked at Los Rios School of Rock since 2011 “but was fired after allegations were reported to deputies,” the OCSD states that due to his “lengthy time working with minors and his potential exposure to numerous youths, SVD investigators believe there may be additional victims.” Anyone with information or who believes they were a victim is asked to call OCSD’s SVD at 714.647.7419 or 714.647.7000. Anonymous tips may be left with Orange County Crime Stoppers at 1-855-TIP-OCCS.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.