Tennis dad’s sex counts
Coach in child abuse probe
NICK Philippoussis, the father of retired Australian tennis star Mark Philippoussis, has been arrested on child sex abuse charges in the US.
The 68-year-old tennis coach is accused of committing multiple counts of lewd and lascivious acts on two children.
Philippoussis was arrested in a surprise morning raid at his southern Californian home by San Diego sheriffs.
“He didn’t know we were coming,” Lieutenant Greg Rylaarsdam from the San Diego Sheriff’s Department said of the arrest at his Mira Mesa home on Tuesday.
A search warrant was executed on the property what were seized.
The alleged victims were aged under 14, but Lt Rylaarsdam would not disclose their age or gender.
One charge, sexual intercourse or sodomy, usually relates to a child aged 10 years or younger. Another count was for oral copulation.
Nick Philippoussis worked as a personal tennis coach in neighbourhoods north of San Diego and detectives haven’t ruled out the possibility of more alleged victims. They have encouraged anyone with information related to the investigation to call them.
“In this particular case we are in the infancy of the investigation,” Lt Rylaarsdam said.
“On a lot of cases we go all the way to the end and get all of our facts in order and all of the evidence lined up and then we go out and arrest somebody.
“But in a case like this where there is the potential of ongoing victimisation we developed probable cause and went out and arrested him when we had that.
“We have done an investigation up until now which leads us to believe that this did in fact occur and we arrested him and essentially took him out of the population.”
The detectives stressed there was no evidence “whatsoever” that 40-year-old Mark Philippoussis, a two-time member of the winning Australian Davis Cup team, Wimbledon finalist and former top 10 player, was in any way involved.
There were also no apparent links to potential victims in Australia.
Nick Philippoussis is being held in San Diego Central Jail on $US2.5 million bail. He is scheduled to make his first appearance at a San Diego courthouse this morning, Australian time.