Logroño, (EFE) to whom he promised sports contracts.
According to Eduardo Esteban, head of the Provincial Judicial Police Brigade, the 38-year-old detainee is an “alleged sexual predator”, who is also accused of child pornography and three other crimes of sexual harassment of minors online or “child-grooming”.
Esteban appeared this Wednesday at a press conference to report on this operation together with the Government delegate in La Rioja, Beatriz Arraiz, the superior chief of the National Police in La Rioja, Manuel Laguna; and the inspector of the Family and Women’s Care Unit (UFAM), Zita Cascallana.
The investigation began in June 2022, upon receiving a complaint for sexual abuse of a minor, allegedly committed by his coach, after which he was arrested last August and his mobile phone and tablet were seized, in which he had almost 63,000 multimedia files of a sexual nature with minors.
During the ten months that the investigation has lasted, which is still open for acts allegedly committed between 2019 and 2020, seven more victims were identified after the first complaint filed, all adolescents from La Rioja.
The Police do not rule out the appearance of more affected minors, since the detainee worked for many years as a sports trainer.
The accused used his position as a coach in a sports club in Logroño and a scout for soccer players to establish relationships with young people, he stressed.
sports cravings
Thus, he has reported, he took advantage of “the professional sports desires of minors to become someone in the world of football” to have private conversations “of a sexual nature” with the boys, outside the field of training.
Once he gained the trust of the young people, he contacted them through social networks or messaging applications and, then, he asked them for photos of their private parts or dates to see each other alone, and even offered money to them. some in exchange for having sex.
The agents confirmed that he even groped some of them and also convinced one to move with him to another city under the false pretense of signing a contract with a professional team, and there he proposed to go to a hostel to have sex, which he did. that the minor declined.
Fear of social stigma
At the time of the coach’s arrest, his mobile phone and a tablet were seized, where there were more than 29 gigabytes of multimedia files, in which more minors appeared who could not be identified, but the police maintain that, given the fear to a “social stigmatization”, they may not dare to denounce the facts.
In this sense, the Government delegate has stressed that this type of “serious” crime, involving minors, “should never be silenced.”
Inspector Cascallana has specified that there were two complaints, in 2015 and 2021, prior to these events for “similar episodes”, which were filed in court, but she does not know if they happened at the same football club.
After his arrest in August 2022, this alleged child molester went to court and was released, with the obligation to appear in court periodically, he has indicated.
The entry A soccer coach arrested for abusing 8 minors to whom he promised sports contracts was first published in EFE Noticias.