Former Carmel High coach pleads ‘no contest’ in sex abuse case
A former Carmel High School soccer coach pleaded no contest Tuesday to one felony charge of engaging in sexual activity with a minor.
Edgar Antonio Garcia De Paz, 25, of Seaside, was arrested in November on charges stemming from an incident in the year prior.
Prosecutors said Garcia De Paz was a girls soccer coach at Carmel High in February 2012 when he and five female soccer players went to dinner at a Monterey restaurant. After dinner, a 16-year-old player and Garcia De Paz went to his parked car. That’s where the girl told authorities she was forced to perform a sex act on him.
Garcia De Paz will be sentenced in May in Monterey County Superior Court, where he’s expected to be placed on felony probation and ordered to serve up to a year in county jail. The judge also could require him to register as a sex offender, according to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office.
Garcia De Paz wasn’t arrested until more than a year after the incident occurred. At the time of his arrest, he was working as an assistant coach at Monterey Peninsula College.
