2 Star Athletes Face Bank Heist Charges

A star Newbury Park soccer player and her championship wrestler boyfriend were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of robbing a Westlake Village bank.

Tabetha Garibay, 20, booted a soccer ball as the star forward for teams at Newbury Park High and Pepperdine University. Todd Hoult, 23, once wrestled for Agoura High School and Moorpark College.

And according to a federal grand jury indictment filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, they robbed the Coast Federal Bank in Westlake Village on Dec. 14.

Hoult was the gunman and Garibay piloted the getaway car, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. Now, he said, the young couple face up to 20 years in prison--Hoult could be sentenced to 25--if convicted on federal bank robbery charges.

Hoult was no stranger to the law. He was already serving probation for a 1992 house burglary in Thousand Oaks, when sheriff’s deputies arrested him Jan. 10 for the robbery, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Chuck Buttell.

But Garibay’s indictment on Wednesday mystified her former high school coach.

For an aggressive soccer player who anchored numerous Newbury Park High victories and longed only to graduate from college, the coach said, such a crime seems totally out of character.

“It sounds like she got caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, because Tabetha’s not the type of person who’d be involved in such activities,” said Donna Doman, girls’ soccer coach at Newbury Park High. “I think it’s very unfortunate that somebody led her astray.”

It happened nine days before Christmas.

As streets teemed with Christmas shoppers Dec. 14, the sturdy young man and his pretty, frosted-blond girlfriend drove up to Coast Federal Bank in Westlake Village in a gold 1984 Corvette, Birotte said.

Hoult hopped out with a semiautomatic pistol--his face cloaked in a black ski mask, hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses--and ran inside, Birotte said. Garibay waited behind.

Hoult ordered two or three bank employees and possibly a customer to the floor, then vaulted the counter and ordered tellers Heidi Mason and Sunila Jhala to put up their hands, according to Birotte and the indictment.

Witnesses said he then fled from the bank with $8,925 and hopped back into the Corvette, which drove off down an alley behind Westlake Medical Center, according to Birotte.

Less than 90 minutes later, police and FBI agents found the Corvette abandoned in a Thousand Oaks shopping plaza.

Inside, Birotte said, they found a pair of plane tickets to North Carolina, where Hoult’s parents live.

On Dec. 18, Birotte said, an unidentified friend apparently wired some of the bank robbery proceeds to Hoult in Las Vegas, which he picked up using the name Todd Preston.

Hoult has been held in Ventura County Jail since his arrest. FBI agents arrested Garibay on Wednesday night.

“The motive for the robbery right now is unknown,” Birotte said. “I just don’t know what caused their actions.”

Garibay “was a very beautiful young girl . . . definitely very muscular and in very good condition,” Doman said.

“She was a very strong player, skillwise. She had had some good training and was a leader on the team,” Doman said. “I think she was a very important player when she was here.”

Garibay moved on to Pepperdine University on a partial scholarship after she graduated in 1994, and continued playing soccer for the Pepperdine Waves, Doman said.

One former teammate, Meredith Disney, said of the news of Garibay’s indictment, “It’s kind of shocking, considering she got a scholarship to college and all that.”

Pepperdine coaches could not be reached Wednesday evening for comment.

Steve Smith, Hoult’s former coach, said the tall, 190-pound wrestler was an aggressive athlete at Agoura High.

“You had to be, to do as well as he did,” which included winning the Division I wrestling championship in the California Interscholastic Federation, said Smith. “He was a good, tough competitor.”

On the other hand, he was known to have “behavior problems,” said Agoura High assistant principal Fred Williams.

But he was “straightening up and doing OK for us” by the time he left, Williams said. “His grades, his attitude and his behavior were getting better. . . . We thought he was going to continue that positive movement when he went on to Moorpark College, and the next thing we start hearing was negative.”

Hoult went to Moorpark College after graduating from Agoura in 1991, but did not compete on the wrestling team the following semester because he did not take enough credits to be eligible, said Floyd Thionnet, vice president of student services. His grades showed him to be “an average student.”

Then on Jan. 14, 1992, a Thousand Oaks resident told police that three young men were in a neighbor’s backyard.

Police arrived and caught two of the men after a brief footchase. And they found the house with a window pried off and jewelry, cameras, coins and cash stacked inside and ready to go.

As detectives searched the home that one suspect shared with Hoult, according to police, Hoult turned himself in and confessed that he was the burglar who got away.

He was on probation for that burglary when he was arrested in January on a probation violation charge in connection with the Dec. 14 bank robbery, police said.

“We are disappointed,” said Williams. “Any time we have an athlete who seems to be leaving us on a positive note and goes the opposite direction, it is disappointing.”

Williams said that Hoult lived not with his family, but in a group home in Agoura Hills or Calabasas, where he was getting counseling for his problems.

Smith said of Hoult’s arrest, “I think it’s a shame, because the kid had a lot of talent, and had a lot of charm. . . . I just hate to see this. I hope this is all wrong.”

Correspondent Kelly David contributed to this story.