Coach Arrested Over Alleged Offers for Sex

A teacher who coached soccer for more than 14 years in Los Angeles and Orange counties was arrested on suspicion of offering alcohol to girls under 14, hoping for sex, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday.

Thomas Harold Miller, 33, of Laguna Niguel was arrested Friday and held at Orange County Jail on suspicion of child annoyance. Miller was released Saturday after he posted $50,000 bail.

“He’d communicate with girls under 14 years of age on the Internet and in person at soccer clinics,” said sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino.

Several girls reported to police that they had been solicited for sex, Amormino said.

There was no indication that Miller had sex with any girls, Amormino said. “Luckily, we caught this fairly early,” he said.

Police were contacted by the parents of a girl to whom Miller had sent e-mails, offering to give her liquor-laced cola for sex, Amormino said.

He said Miller was targeting girls on teams that he coached at the Eclipse Soccer Club in Ladera Ranch from May to August, and police said there may be more girls who were targeted.

Mike Piampo, district commissioner for the Southern California Youth Soccer Assn., said that as of Tuesday, Miller was no longer a coach for the Eclipse Soccer Club.

Piampo said Miller was one of 2,800 coaches registered by the governing board and had been screened and fingerprinted before being allowed to coach girls under 15 for the 2004-05 season.

Piampo said his organization had not been contacted by detectives but that it would cooperate with the investigation.

Amormino said Miller taught at Orange County high schools, but investigators would not identify them. A spokesman for Pacifica High School in Garden Grove said Miller worked part time as a coach during the 1995-96 school year.