UPDATE, OCT. 29, 9:54 A.M.: Swim instructor Todd Robert Sousa, who was sentenced Friday to prison time and a sex offender tag for unlawful sex with a 15-year-old girl he taught, is the son-in-law of Laguna Hills City Councilman Joel Lautenschleger.
Sousa has children with Lautenschleger's daughter.
According to his city bio, Lautenschleger was the chief petitioner and co-chairman for the successful
drive to incorporate the city in March 1991.
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Concurrent with that incorporation vote, Lautenschleger was elected to the first Laguna Hills City Council and has served on the panel ever since. He was mayor in 1995, 2000, 2004 and 2009.
As a swim coach, which included a long association with Woodbridge High School in Irvine, Sousa has specialized in “stroke technique,” an aptitude that should serve him well during long nights in the can.
ORIGINAL POST, OCT. 28, 6:15 P.M.: Swim instructor Todd Robert Sousa was sentenced today to 16 months in state prison for
having an unlawful sexual relationship with a 15-year-old female
student. The 37-year-old Irvine resident pleaded guilty to a court offer
to 13 felony counts of lewd acts on a child, three felony counts of
unlawful sexual intercourse, and two misdemeanor counts of contributing
to the delinquency of a minor.
In addition to his prison sentence, Sousa
is also required to register as a sex offender, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA). And that means he'll be prohibited from entering county parks and city parks in
Irvine, La Habra, Los Alamitos and Westminster without permission for
police agencies first, as the county and cities have passed OCDA-pushed bans on registered pervs in parks that attract children.
My former
colleague Chasen Marshall reported in the spring about Sousa's arrest,
charges and arraignment where he pleaded not guilty. See:
He was in the middle of a swim practice at JSerra High School in San
Juan Capistrano when authorities walked onto the pool deck and placed
him under arrest. The coach of the Irvine Aquazot Swim Club at the time,
he was quickly fired. He'd previously coached at Woodbridge High
School, also in Irvine.
Sousa met the 15-year-old girl when he worked as her swim
instructor. He groomed her for unlawful sexual contact that included
kissing and touching her breasts and vagina over her
clothes. It later escalated to digital penetration, oral copulation,
and sexual intercourse on several occasions, in his car, office and an
equipment closet. Don't call him a romantic. After plying the girl and
her friend with alcohol, Sousa even had sex with the victim in his
office while her friend waited outside.
The girl's parents learned of the relationship, called the Orange
County Sheriff's Department and that was the end of that. At his sentencing today, the girl's mother and step-father gave
the court victim impact statements saying the coach's actions
ruined their lives, and that their daughter was an avid swimmer and now
she doesn't want to swim and has been depressed.
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.
This creep now goes by Robert his middle name and has tried to erase all stink. Google him and you’ll see. His wife also never divorce him. They ‘,found God” he is a wealth advisor now hahahaha.