Men join the Army to escape a lot of things: boredom, crushing poverty, chorus lines.
But answering the call to serve is not enough to beat a rap of sex with a 16-year-old girl.
At least, it wasn't for former gymnastics coach and Fullerton resident Jason Wayne Scofield.
The 37-year-old pleaded guilty Tuesday to two felony counts of
unlawful sexual intercourse, two felony counts of oral copulation of a
minor, one felony count of sodomy of a person under 18, two felony
counts of digital penetration of a minor, and one felony count of
sexual penetration by foreign object.
(It's apparently tough to be a 16-year-old girl in Fullerton. The Orange County Register has details on a music instructor Daniel Hansol Oh, 27, of Fullerton, getting 14 years in state prison after pleading guilty to two counts
of continuous sexual abuse of a child and two counts of lewd or
lascivious acts with a minor. His victim was a 16-year-old Fullerton girl, and the violin teacher also admitted to molesting three other girls.)
Scofield will get off easier than Oh. He could have received seven years and eight months in the can, but the Orange County District Attorney's Office says Scofield
is expected to be sentenced to one year in jail and three years of probation at his March 30 sentencing at North Justice Center in Fullerton.
Prosecutors have objected over the expected sentence failing to include a requirement that Scofield must register as a sex offender.
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Here's why the prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Nikki Buracchio of the Sexual Assault Unit, believes Scofield should have to register as a sex offender.
He met a 16-year-old girl while working as a
gymnastics coach at Wildfire Gymnastics in Tustin, and between Feb. 17 and June 30, 2009, had an unlawful sexual relationship
with her in his car and at his Fullerton
home, repeatedly.
Sometime after their final tryst, Scofield joined the U.S. Army and was stationed in Arizona. He was still serving there when the girl's parents learned from a concerned friend's email that the former coach had sex with their daughter. They immediately contacted authorities.
Charges were filed and a warrant was issued Sept. 18, 2009, for Scofield, who was living in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He was arrested a few days later in Arizona and brought back to Orange County on Oct. 21, 2009, to
face the music.
It wasn't revelry. More like “Taps.”
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.