Coach Accused of Molestation Suspended : Investigation: Sexually explicit photographs of the 18-year-old stepdaughter he is accused of abusing are confiscated from the Balboa Island home they shared, police say. He is released on bail.

The head football coach at Corona del Mar High School was suspended with pay Wednesday as police revealed they have confiscated sexually explicit photographs from his home showing the 18-year-old stepdaughter he is accused of molesting.

Mark Aubrey Schuster, 48, was arrested late Tuesday and charged with 16 felony counts of lewd acts against the stepdaughter, dating back six years. The arrest came after she helped police tape two conversations with Schuster at his high school office.

In the taped conversations, police said, Schuster acknowledged a relationship with his stepdaughter in which he demanded sexual favors as “payments” for gifts or as punishment for bad grades, police said.

Schuster, who did not return telephone calls to his home and was not there when a reporter visited Wednesday, was released on bail at 1:30 a.m. His arraignment has been set for Nov. 2, Deputy Dist. Atty. Claudia Silbar said.

Silbar said the abuse allegedly began with inappropriate touching in 1989, when the stepdaughter was 12, and escalated to statutory rape and oral copulation. The sex acts with the stepdaughter, whom Schuster legally adopted when she was 8, allegedly occurred as often as once or twice a week, Silbar said, most recently on Sept. 11.

Silbar said she planned to amend her complaint this week to reflect only allegations of abuse that occurred after the pair moved to Orange County in May, 1994. Previous incidents allegedly took place in Diamond Bar, where Schuster and his stepdaughter previously lived, and at other locations in the Los Angeles area.

Schuster has coached the Corona del Mar Sea Kings since last fall and spent the previous 22 years as a science teacher and coach at Azusa High School.

Most coaches and teachers at Corona del Mar and Azusa high schools refused to comment on the arrest Wednesday, but Newport-Mesa Unified School District Supt. Mac Bernd said the district was cooperating fully with police, conducting an internal investigation and offering counseling to any students who might need it.

“My first reaction was complete disbelief,” said Bernd, who learned of the charges in a meeting Tuesday with the Newport Beach Police Chief Robert J. McDonell. “When you’re in education, you are immediately and strongly concerned when anything like this surfaces. Obviously you have a situation where he was respected and supported by a number of people in the community.”

District officials said Schuster’s pay will be stopped when they receive confirmation that the district attorney has filed charges, probably within a few days.

Police said the stepdaughter told them she waited until her 18th birthday to report the abuse because she feared having to continue living with Schuster after contacting authorities. She confided in her 21-year-old boyfriend Sunday, who immediately took her to stay with her uncle in the San Gabriel Valley. The uncle contacted Newport Beach police Sunday night and arranged to bring her to the station Monday, according to police and the boyfriend.

“She’s doing really good,” the boyfriend said Wednesday, as he and some friends hastily gathered the woman’s belongings from the small red brick duplex on Balboa Island where she and Schuster lived alone. “The family is supporting her and she’s never going to come back here again.”

Schuster and the stepdaughter both used the term “payments” while discussing the sex acts in two separate conversations that were recorded by Newport Beach detectives, Sgt. Andy Gonis said Wednesday. Monday’s conversation occurred on the telephone, Gonis said. For an in-person conversation Tuesday, he said, police outfitted the stepdaughter with a tape recorder.

Gonis said the taped conversations corroborated her statements of the abuse. “There was discussion about ‘payments,’ ” Gonis said.

“The victim appears to be a very mature, articulate young lady,” Silbar said. “However, the tapes serve as substantial corroboration of her statements.”

Gonis said police served a search warrant Tuesday and seized photographs showing the alleged victim topless and in a G-string. Investigators declined to elaborate on other evidence seized in searches of Schuster’s home, car and office.

Corona del Mar football players were called away from their first-period classes Wednesday morning for a meeting with Principal Don Martin, Athletic Director Jerry Jelnick and several assistant football coaches.

“We told them that Mark has some problems he has to work out,” Jelnick said. “We told the kids to worry about the task at hand, which is learning and playing the game of football and preparing for another opponent every week.”

Corona del Mar, the 10th-ranked high school football team in Orange County, has won its first two games this season, for the first time in three years. The team faces Kennedy High of Anaheim Friday night with defensive coordinator Dick Freeman as interim head coach.

News of Schuster’s arrest buzzed through the campus Wednesday, provoking a wide range of reaction. Many students supported Schuster, saying he was a strong figure in school sports. But a number of parents were outraged by the news.

Many said Schuster was a well-liked coach and teacher who shared personal experiences in his class.

“He always talked about Vietnam stories, fighting in the rice paddies,” said a freshman who was among Schuster’s students last year in an eighth-grade health class at the school, which includes grades 7 through 12. “He was cool, and easy to talk to.”

Some students noted that Schuster helped the students’ morale. “Now there’s more school spirit and our teams are all strong,” said a 16-year-old sophomore. When classes were dismissed at 2:45 p.m. Wednesday, reporters and cameras swarmed the campus. Some young athletes zoomed by in their trucks screaming, “Innocent until proven guilty!” But other people were less sympathetic.

“It’s just shocking,” said Steve Kiser, 45, whose son entered the seventh grade at the school this year.

About 75 parents and members of the high school’s Booster Club met Wednesday night at the school’s small theater. Several parents said they and others had come primarily to discuss their concern about Schuster’s arrest.

The parents were met by Principal Don Martin, who said he wanted to urge them to rally around the school’s team, students and coaches.

“We can dwell on the catastrophe or we can help them emotionally through a very traumatic time by being there for them and responding to them when they ask, ‘How could this happen?’

“Without assigning guilt or innocence, we can tell them that sometimes life just throws us a curve. I want to encourage parents to talk and be open to their kids.”

The alleged victim is a daughter of Debra Lee Schuster, whom Schuster married in late 1981. They separated in 1993 and their divorce was finalized last year, according to records in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Police said the young woman told them she tolerated the abuse because she did not want to live with her mother. But her boyfriend said Wednesday that she chose to live with Schuster because she did not want to be a burden to her mother.

The couple was awarded joint legal custody of the child, but the primary responsibility for care was given to Mark Schuster, court records show.

In the records, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court in 1993, Debra Schuster alleged that Mark Schuster had stopped paying child support during a period when her daughter lived with her. She said she feared she could not support her daughter because she was earning less than $500 a month and had been forced to move in with her brother and his family.

“At times, I have to borrow money for gas to get back and forth to work. Unless [Mark Schuster] provides me with financial support, I will not be able to rent a place of my own or have our daughter . . . stay with me,” Debra Schuster said in the documents.

“[The daughter] needs to have both her mother and father play a substantial role in her life. She’s now 16 years old. These are not the easiest of ages and she will need both of us with respect to decisions, guidance, love, understanding, and care.”

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Times staff writers Susan Marquez Owen and Martin Beck contributed to this report.