GLENDALE : Coach Charged With Stealing Girls’ Panties

A girls soccer coach broke into the homes of teen-age players to steal their underwear, police said Tuesday.

Luis Castellanos, 19, was ordered to appear June 8 in Pasadena Superior Court for arraignment on seven felony counts of residential burglary and 12 counts of receiving stolen property after a Tuesday hearing in Glendale Municipal Court.

Castellanos, who has pleaded not guilty, is being held at the Los Angeles County Jail in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Police testified that Castellanos had a computer printout listing the names and addresses of 15- and 16-year-old girls who played in Division Two of the American Youth Soccer Organization with him when he was arrested April 27.

Castellanos knew the girls whose homes he allegedly burglarized, police said. They either played on his or on his father’s teams and on other teams in AYSO region 88, said Glendale Police Investigator Brian Melnick.

Castellanos was arrested after Glendale Community College student Keri Peterson identified him as the man she saw standing in her living room April 26. She further identified a pair of panties seized from the defendant--blue and pink striped Jockeys--as her own.

Glendale Police Officer Espie Fernandez testified that Castellanos told her during an interview on April 29 how he broke into each of the 20 houses cited on a “break-in” list found in the bedroom of his Montebello home.

The list included names of 23 girls, a column called “underwear mission,” indicating if underwear was taken from their homes, and a column labeled “money received,” Fernandez testified.

Castellanos also told police he took money from several of the residences, she said.

A large plastic bag containing underwear, including some pieces that were labeled with the owner’s names, was found in Castellanos’ attic, Fernandez testified. She added that Castellanos identified which pair belonged to which victim.

Fernandez said that Castellanos told her he took the underwear because he “wanted a memento from each of the girls” and that he “felt he had conquered each house by doing so.”