Daughter Tells Jury of Abuse by Ex-Coach

The adopted daughter of a former high school football coach testified Wednesday that she was forced to have sex with her father as “payments” for poor grades or items he bought her.

The daughter, now 19, tearfully told jurors her father, Mark Aubrey Schuster, first had sex with her when she was 15 and later used handcuffs and a bathrobe belt to tie her during intercourse.

“If we were in a store, he’d say, ‘You’ve got to make a payment for this,’ ” she said as Schuster’s trial opened in Orange County Superior Court.

Schuster, 49, formerly a teacher and the popular head football coach at Corona del Mar High School, has pleaded not guilty to 16 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse and a single charge of oral copulation with a minor. He faces up to six years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Defense lawyer William G. Watson said Schuster, who had custody after the girl’s mother moved out, was a strict parent who did not like his daughter’s boyfriend. But, Watson said, “He’s not a person who molests children. And he is not a person who had sex with this girl.”

Watson said the daughter never accused her father until after a bitter argument with Schuster over getting a new car. “Somebody’s not telling the truth,” Watson told jurors.

The daughter said the payments were part of an “agreement” and she never struggled to avoid having sex with her father. She said he first began to touch her during wrestling matches at home when she was about 12.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Claudia Silbar said the touching escalated into sexual intercourse after the parents separated. The daughter said Schuster first had sex with her during a 1993 Hawaii vacation but she was “too scared” to report it.

Schuster increasingly demanded sexual “payments” for poor grades, purchases or permission to go on dates after the two moved to Newport Beach in 1994, the daughter said. She said she kept the matter a secret because she doubted anyone would believe her.

The daughter first told her boyfriend about the sex last September after an argument with her father over getting a bigger car, Silbar said.

Schuster was arrested after police taped a conversation in which the daughter sought to dupe him into admitting guilt by telling him she had gonorrhea. Schuster worried aloud what he would tell his new girlfriend and said the “payments” were over, Silbar said.

But Watson said Schuster used the word “payment” to refer to household chores, not sex. Watson said that if the charges were true, the daughter could have reported them much sooner or gone to live with her mother.

The attorney suggested that the daughter made up the charges in anger over the argument and the antipathy between Schuster and her boyfriend, whom she later married.