Coach Convicted in Molestation of Player
The coach of a girls soccer team has been convicted of molesting a 17-year-old player, prosecutors said Friday.
Manny De Jesus Cornejo, 46, of Canyon Country, was arrested in December after the girl told her parents that the coach had fondled her at his house.
After a four-day trial in Newhall Superior Court, a jury convicted Cornejo on Thursday of molesting a child under the age of 18, a misdemeanor, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Karen Tandler.
“It was not accidental. It was intentional groping,” Tandler said of the Nov. 9, 1999, incident.
Cornejo coached a team for the private Santa Clarita Valley Soccer Club, Tandler said.
Cornejo will be sentenced July 6 by Judge Floyd Baxter. He faces a maximum sentence of one year in county jail and a $1,000 fine, Tandler said.
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