Former Irvine youth soccer coach Robert Vincent Peace changed his not guilty plea to possessing piles of child porn–including sexually explicit photos he coerced out of 13- and 14-year-old girls he met in chat rooms–to an admission of guilt, earning an eight-year, eight-month prison term and lifetime registration as a sex offender.
Talk about a red card!
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Peace in 2009 met a 13-year-old girl from Endicott, New York, in an
Internet video-chat room on Stickam.com. At his urging, she sent the 45-year-old Lake Forest resident and British citizen videos of
herself masturbating. He then threatened to post them online if she did not send more, which she did for the next two years. Peace posted them anyway without her knowledge.
A family member who discovered some of Peace's 1,500 images and more than 300 videos of graphic pornography featuring young teenage girls on his computer contacted the Orange County Sheriff's Department in February 2011 and gave them his hard drive. A computer forensics analysis uncovered all the kiddie porn–and discovered the 13-year-old from New York.
Peace was pulled over this past January and arrested, at which time more child porn was found in his car and at his home.
Robert Vincent Peace, Youth Soccer Coach, Accused of Possessing Child Porn
Further computer analysis produced a second victim, a 14-year-old girl from Virginia Peace also meet in 2009 on Stickam. The charges against him were then increased.
Robert Vincent Peace, Youth Soccer Coach Accused of Holding Child Porn, Faces New Charges
Today, he pleaded guilty to seven felony counts of lewd acts on a
child, three felony counts each of lewd acts upon a child under 14, and
contacting a child with intent to commit a lewd act upon a child, two
felony counts each of using a minor for sex acts, and possession and
control of child pornography, and one felony count of using a minor for
distribution of obscene manner with a sentencing enhancement allegation
for substantial sexual conduct with a child.
The sex offender tag will keep Peace off many Orange County soccer fields–or at least those in parks covered by Child Safety Zones.
“I find it very difficult to
comprehend how he could have such deliberate intent and forethought to
prey on these young girls for his own sick pleasure,” said the father of the second girl in a victim impact statement delivered in court today. “Our lives have been
irreparably broken by this man.”
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.