An assistant basketball coach at New Mexico faculties tricked a number of women into sending him nude and inappropriate photographs on Snapchat after which blackmailed them, in keeping with courtroom paperwork.

Now, a lawsuit says issues on the college district went past that one coach.

Joshua Gregory Rico, 26, who previously labored for the Pecos Unbiased Faculty District, pleaded responsible on Dec 22 to 5 counts of coercion and enticement of minors, in keeping with the US Legal professional’s Workplace for the District of New Mexico.

A number of college district workers members, together with two different assistant coaches and a janitor, have been beforehand accused of sexual abuse of minors, in keeping with a lawsuit filed in opposition to the varsity district in 2021.

The lawsuit says the negligence of faculty directors allowed the misconduct to proceed, creating an surroundings for Rico to prey on college students.

Grady Barrens, president of the Pecos Unbiased Faculty District Board of Schooling, declined McClatchy Information’ request for remark.

Rico’s costs

Rico, who started working with the varsity district as an assistant boys basketball coach for each center and highschool college students in 2018, created a pretend profile on Snapchat with the identify “Chris Lujan” and added an eighth-grade woman’s varsity basketball participant on the app, in keeping with the lawsuit.

Posing as a 15-year-old highschool scholar from one other city, Rico started messaging the woman, who was 14, day by day and ultimately requested her to ship him bare photographs of herself, the lawsuit says.

He later added her utilizing one other pretend profile, demanded extra bare footage and threatened to ship them to different folks if she didn’t do what he mentioned, in keeping with the lawsuit. He additionally despatched her nude photographs of different women, a few of whom the sufferer acknowledged, the lawsuit says.

In an electronic mail to McClatchy Information, a Snapchat spokesperson outlined protections the corporate has in place to guard minors.

The protections embody:

– A default setting that teenagers on the app should be mates earlier than they’ll begin speaking;

– Teenagers being barred from having a public profile;

– Limiting teenagers’ profiles from displaying up in searches or as steered mates except if they’ve mutual mates in widespread.

The corporate additionally has a brand new “Household Heart” function that enables dad and mom to see whom minors are mates with and whom they communicated with up to now seven days, the spokesperson mentioned.

Snapchat additionally works with legislation enforcement and takes motion to terminate accounts after studies of inappropriate contact between adults and minors, the spokesperson mentioned.

In one other case, Rico posted a unadorned photograph of a woman on his Snapchat story, which is seen to different customers, and tagged her username when she didn’t reply to his messages, the lawsuit says.

His victims included not less than 4 women between the ages of 14 and 16, in keeping with the US Legal professional’s Workplace. He’s accused of coercing not less than one among them into “partaking in sexual acts with him”.

In a single case, he demanded {that a} woman carry out oral intercourse on him whereas he recorded video, the lawsuit says, after which used a pretend Snapchat profile to ask her to ship him the video.

Rico was arrested in February 2020, in keeping with KRQE.

Pecos is about 80 miles northeast of Albuquerque.

‘Sample and apply of sexual abuse of scholars,’ lawsuit says

The lawsuit says that Pasco Unbiased Faculty District directors “did nothing to appropriate or abort the sample and apply of sexual abuse of scholars” within the college district, “thus enabling and inspiring Rico that any misconduct would go unchecked.”

In 2017, a janitor, Louie Vigil, was arrested and charged with a number of counts associated to “prison sexual penetration of a minor,” who was a scholar within the college district and his relative, the lawsuit says.

One other assistant Pecos Excessive Faculty basketball coach, Dominick Baca, was sentenced to 3 years in jail in 2020 on costs associated to the rapes of a 14-year-old and 17-year-old woman, in keeping with the Santa Fe New Mexican.

No less than two victims who got here ahead to report Baca’s conduct have been “chastised, ridiculed and harassed by different college students” to the purpose the place they transferred faculties, the lawsuit says.

“(Pecos Unbiased Faculty District) did not take acceptable remedial motion to cease such behaviour,” the lawsuit says.

Two lawsuits filed on behalf of Baca’s two victims in opposition to the varsity district have been settled in 2018 and 2019 for a complete sum of round US$1.5mil (RM6.60mil), the lawsuit says.

An assistant basketball coach, Apolonio Blea, who labored at Pecos Center Faculty and Mora Excessive Faculty in Mora, New Mexico, was charged in Might 2018 and accused of raping and stabbing a 14-year-old scholar at Mora Excessive Faculty, the lawsuit says.

The Pecos Unbiased Faculty district, going again to the 2013-2014 college 12 months, “had a sample and apply of failing to correctly examine complaints of sexual abuse of scholars, failing to take acceptable disciplinary motion in opposition to sexual predators, concentrating on or retaliating in opposition to people who reported sexual abuse allegations and failing to coach (district) staff to recognise, forestall and intervene in issues of scholar sexual abuse,” the lawsuit says.

Attorneys for the defendants within the case – the Board of Schooling of the Pecos Unbiased Faculty District, Rico, then-superintendent Fred Trujillo and then-principal of Pecos Center Faculty and athletic coordinator for the district Michael Lister – didn’t reply to requests for remark from McClatchy Information.

The present superintendent of the varsity district, Debra Sena-Holton, didn’t reply to a request for remark.

Linda Hemphill, the lawyer representing one of many victims who is known as because the plaintiff within the lawsuit, mentioned in an announcement she was “happy” the US Legal professional’s Workplace secured a responsible plea from Rico.

The lawsuit has been stayed pending the end result of the prison case, however Hemphill mentioned she expects the keep can be lifted after a standing convention in January.

“Provided that Rico is the second assistant basketball coach in Pecos who has pled responsible to costs involving sexual abuse of minor college youngsters, we’re dedicated to pursuing justice for our consumer,” the assertion says. “We additionally hope and anticipate that Pecos Faculty officers will heed this get up name and begin taking their authorized and ethical obligation to guard harmless college youngsters extra significantly.”

Rico’s sentencing listening to has not but been scheduled, in keeping with the US Legal professional’s Workplace. He’ll stay in custody till sentencing.

He faces as much as life in jail and the requirement to register as a intercourse offender, the workplace mentioned. – The Charlotte Observer/Tribune Information Service