Ocean Swim Figure Pleads Guilty to Malicious Mischief

A Costa Mesa man who accompanied his young daughter last year on a publicized two-mile ocean swim pleaded guilty to malicious mischief Thursday in tearing the head off a neighborhood child’s toy horse, a prosecutor said.

Irv Krespi was sentenced in Municipal Court here to three years of informal probation and ordered to pay restitution and continue with counseling, the prosecutor said. Krespi was also found to be in violation of his existing probation, which stemmed from a guilty plea last year to a spousal abuse charge.

Krespi gained nationwide attention when he and his daughter Ariel, now 5, made the swim. Krespi said he had been found to have terminal cancer and trained with Ariel because he wanted her to have a special memory of their time together.

Hours after the swim Krespi was arrested on charges of misdemeanor spousal abuse and resisting arrest stemming from a fight with his estranged wife. He pleaded guilty in September, but maintained his innocence.

The same day he entered that plea he got in an argument with a neighbor who accused him of calling her obscene names and tearing the head off her child’s stuffed toy.

Krespi pleaded not guilty to those charges in November. On Thursday, as the case headed to trial, he pleaded guilty to malicious mischief, a misdemeanor offense, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Pear.

Krespi said Thursday that he is living in a Costa Mesa motel with his daughter. He said that he has become the victim of his own celebrity and that he was unfairly prosecuted.

He said he pleaded guilty to the malicious mischief charge because he ran out of money, and that the stuffed horse belonged to his daughter.

“It comes to a certain point where there are so many charges you try to make a deal. . . . I can only borrow so much money,” Krespi said. “If I had the money it would have gone full blast to jury trial and I would have won hands down.”

Krespi said he pleaded guilty to the spousal abuse charge last year because he wanted to get on with his training for daughter, who has been hurt by the string of charges, Krespi said.

“By this year she could have been ready to do Catalina Island to the mainland. Her training stopped because of all this,” Krespi said.