Former Coach at Valley High Sentenced

A former Santa Ana basketball coach and teacher who pleaded guilty to having sex with a 16-year-old student and embezzling thousands of dollars from a booster fund will spend two years in a prison work center, his attorney said Wednesday.

Under the court sentence, Richard D. Prospero, 32, will work to repay a Valley High School booster account, although it’s unknown if he will be able to work again as a teacher and coach, said his lawyer Gary M. Pohlson.

Prospero pleaded guilty earlier this month to five counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, one count of embezzlement and two counts of grand theft.

“He has a lot of remorse for what he did,” Pohlson said. He added that Prospero had never been in trouble before with the law.

Prospero resigned in January 1995 from Valley High School in Santa Ana, about the same time nearly $8,000 was found missing from a private account used by parents and students for school sports, according to school officials.

Shortly after his resignation, a 16-year-old high school student confided to another teacher about her relationship with Prospero, who also taught English at the school. Officials alerted police of the relationship early last February.

Prospero, a popular coach and teacher whose arrest shocked the school, had been an employee there for about five years.