Coach Targeted Girl Athletes, Document Says

Ventura High School football coach Harvey Kochel, who is awaiting sentencing for having a sexual relationship with one of his students, preyed on female athletes on campus for at least a dozen years, according to a court document filed by prosecutors Wednesday.

At least eight former students are prepared to testify against Kochel when he is sentenced Tuesday, saying he made sexually suggestive comments to them and touched some of them when they were students in his physical education and driver’s education classes, the court document states.

One woman, who graduated from Ventura High in 1981, said Kochel invited her to go away with him for a weekend and promised that they would have “gnarly sex” because of his experience and her “bubbling personality” and “sexy body.” She declined the invitation and told her parents about it, the court document states.

Kochel, who has been suspended without pay since the case surfaced, pleaded guilty in November to six felony charges--including child molestation and unlawful sexual intercourse--involving a girl who is now 16. He also admitted violating a position of special trust with the victim, an allegation that makes a prison sentence mandatory.

The 41-page court document--which for the first time publicly outlines Kochel’s seven-month sexual relationship with the teen-ager, identified only as “Jane Doe”--was prepared to persuade Superior Court Judge Lawrence Storch to send Kochel to prison when he is sentenced.

Defense attorney Louis Samonsky said he will try to have the special allegation stricken so Kochel, 49, can be placed on probation. Samonsky said he will file his own court document before the sentencing in an effort to respond to prosecutors’ charges.

Kochel, the most successful football coach in Ventura High history, sent the teen-ager 49 letters--many of them sexually explicit--between January and the end of September, 1992, prosecutors wrote. Early letters seemed intent upon coaxing the girl into a sexual relationship, and later notes gave her “homework” to do, which consisted of mental preparations for their next tryst.

“I understand that I’m much older and more experienced, and . . . you seem to come off kinda shy when we’re together,” Kochel wrote. “Well, I’m going to try and bridge that gap with you.”

The girl, who was 15 when her affair with Kochel began, had no previous sexual experience, prosecutors said.

“She was naive, idolized him, and was extremely vulnerable to receiving concentrated attention from this adult campus hero figure,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Saundra Brewer wrote. “She was flattered by his singling her out and lavishing her with compliments. . . . She was not some young siren, but just a lovesick kid who idolized her teacher.”

Kochel repeatedly told the girl to destroy his letters after she read them, an instruction that she ignored. Their affair was discovered when the girl’s parents, concerned about a change in her attitude and behavior, found the letters during a search of her room, the documents said.

In the court document, Brewer outlines the expected testimony of several of Kochel’s former students. Identified only by initials, the women graduated between 1979 and 1992.

All had resisted Kochel’s advances and many reported the incidents to their parents and school officials.

Their ages--all of the former students contacted prosecutors after the charges against Kochel surfaced--show that Kochel “exercised his predilection for child sex objects, particularly attractive young female athletes . . . for many years,” Brewer wrote.

“There is every reason to believe this unlawful behavior is habitual and addictive,” Brewer said. “The community abounds with attractive young female athletes. They are not confined to Ventura High School. Defendant, therefore, would pose a danger if not imprisoned. This is not a one-time deviation. This is not happenstance.”