NEWPORT BEACH : Coach Denies Charges Involving Daughter

A suspended Corona del Mar football coach pleaded not guilty Thursday to charges of having repeatedly had unlawful sex with his adopted teen-age daughter since moving to Orange County last year.

Mark Aubrey Schuster, 48, was arraigned in Municipal Court in Newport Beach on 16 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse--representing one incident per month since June, 1994--and one count of oral copulation with a minor.

Authorities allege that Schuster regularly demanded sex from the girl as “payments” for gifts or as punishment for poor grades in school. The daughter, who is now 18, was Schuster’s stepdaughter until he adopted her at age 8.

Schuster was head football coach at Corona del Mar High School at the time of his arrest in September. He was later suspended without pay.

Police helped the girl make up a story about having gonorrhea and then taped the resulting conversation between her and Schuster, according to court records.

During the taped conversation, Schuster worried aloud how his new girlfriend would receive the news and made other incriminating remarks, according to an affidavit filed by police seeking a warrant to search Schuster’s Balboa Island home.

Police have said investigators found sexually explicit photographs of the girl in the home.

Authorities said the alleged molestation began in 1989 with inappropriate touching and led to intercourse in 1992, when the girl, then 14, joined Schuster on a trip to Hawaii. Schuster was charged only with crimes that allegedly occurred in Orange County.