Former California high school cheerleading coach charged with molesting 6 girls

A former highschool cheerleading coach in Mission Viejo has been arrested and charged with a number of felonies on suspicion of molesting six women between 11 and 16 years previous from 2002 to 2006, authorities mentioned Wednesday.

This photograph, supplied by the Orange County District Lawyer’s Workplace exhibits former Orange County cheerleading coach Erick Joseph Kristianson. Kristianson has been charged with molesting women as younger as 11 years previous in Southern California and he faces comparable costs in Florida, prosecutors mentioned Wednesday, Might 10, 2023. (Orange County Distric Lawyer’s Workplace by way of AP) 

The 44-year-old man, Erick Kristianson, now a resident of Antioch, Tenn., was arrested final week in Fargo, N.D., on a felony warrant tied to the Orange County case. He faces 16 felony counts, together with seven felony counts of lewd or lascivious acts with a minor beneath 14, the Orange County District Lawyer’s workplace mentioned in an announcement.

“This was not a predator hiding within the shadows ready to seize harmless women. He was hiding in plain sight as he assaulted woman after woman, considering he would by no means be caught as a result of they trusted him as a coach,” Orange County District Lawyer Todd Spitzer mentioned within the assertion.

From 2002 to 2008, Kristianson labored as a aggressive cheerleading coach at Magic All-Stars and assistant cheer coach at Trabuco Hills Excessive College in 2005, the place he was accused of getting access to the six younger feminine athletes he's accused of molesting, officers mentioned.

The Orange County allegations got here after he was arrested in Florida in 2022, the place he was accused of masturbating on digital camera to 3 women who had been a part of his aggressive cheer membership in Daytona Seashore, in keeping with the District Lawyer’s workplace.

Following his arrest in Florida, native authorities in Orange County had been contacted by a former scholar of Kristianson who mentioned he molested her between the ages of 14 and 16 whereas he was her cheer coach. Kristianson is accused of molesting 5 different women he coached. He took them to off-campus occasions and his residence with a view to molest them, officers mentioned within the assertion.

Kristianson was being held with out bail on the Theo Lacy Facility the place he faces a most sentence of 105 years to life in jail. Authorities consider there could also be further victims and urge anybody with info to name Orange County Sheriff Investigator Austin Jones at 714-647-4016.