South Florida track, football coach accused of molesting girl, 14
The text and Instagram messages from her track coach started to make her feel uncomfortable.
So the 14-year-old told an adult and police got involved.
On Wednesday, Hollywood police arrested Jocques Richardson, 37, on charges including two counts of lewd and lascivious molestation, one count of traveling to meet a minor for an Illegal sex act, two counts of obscene communication/solicit child for unlawful sex act, one count of offenses against students by an authority figure, two counts of use of a child in a sexual performance and a warrant for driving on a suspended driver’s license.
Richardson, the father of at least two children, was being held Thursday in Broward’s Main Jail on a $205,000 bond.
The arrest came after an undercover officer took control of her social media accounts. Thinking it was the teen, Richardson set up a meeting to have sex, an arrest affidavit said.
“You ready for this,” he wrote. When he showed up at her house to pick her up, he was greeted by police.
Police say he is a “private endurance trainer for young athletes in South Florida” as well as a volunteer football and track coach with several programs including Chaminade-Madonna College Preparatory and Hallandale Beach’s Police Athletic League. State records say he ran Liv ALittle Sports Apparel out of his West
Park home for 19 months in 2018 and 2019.
Dr. Judith Mucheck, head of school at ChaminadeMadonna, a private school in Hollywood, said via email that “Mr. Richardson was not a volunteer coach nor was he ever cleared to be one.”
A Herald reporter pointed out to Mucheck that Richardson’s Instagram account shows him working with Chaminade-Madonna track athletes at meets (they’re in Chaminade meet uniforms); working with them at practice, something the athletes acknowledge in the comments; taking practice videos and photos from a coach’s vantage point; and standing at places during meets and practices, sometimes wearing shirts with Chaminade’s logo, that only coaches or officials would be allowed.
She responded, “He was a personal coach to a few students but had no affiliation with our school.”
Police fear there could be more victims.
“Since the suspect is a youth athletic coach, the possibility of him having contact with other juveniles is there,” said Christian Lata, a spokesman for Hollywood police. “That’s why we are reaching out to see if there are other victims.”
According to police, the 14-year-old first met “Coach Joc” on Instagram about a year ago. “Coachjoc” is the name of Richardson’s Instagram account, which mostly chronicles the athletic life of Richardson and the track runners he coaches.
The teen joined the Hallandale Beach Police Athletic League’s running club and was coached by Richardson.
“In the fall of 2019 (September/October) their conversations developed into a personal and intimate relationship,” an officer wrote in Richardson’s arrest report.
Richardson created a private Instagram account and “instructed her to only communicate through this account with him.”
He told her if she were 18 he would date her. He also invited her to the movies, saying his daughter was going. He showed up solo, police said.
The teen told police that in January he picked her up to stretch and took her to McArthur High School in Hollywood. He ended up massaging her inner groin area, according to the report.
“The minor victim did not report this incident because she was afraid to make him mad,” the affidavit read. “She explained if he was mad at her, it would effect [sic] her status on the team and possibly any future college scholarship.”
But recently, Richardson’s text messages bothered her, said the affidavit, which quotes an Instagram message conversation during which Richardson repeatedly asked her if he could perform oral sex on her. She asked him if it was illegal, according to the messages included in the report.
“I illegal is only if you get caught,” he wrote back.
He told her the only way they would caught, is if she said something.
By the time Richardson resumed communicating, police had assumed the role of the girl online. Thinking it was still the teen, he asked her to send an explicit video of herself.
They planned to meet Wednesday.
Richardson showed up in an older model white truck, battered on the passenger side. A check of online traffic records says Richardson’s license has been suspended since Dec. 8, 2017, and he owes
$3,182.15 in traffic fines to Miami-Dade and Broward for violations, including two convictions for speeding through a school zone.
His failure to show for a hearing after an Aug. 9 ticket for knowingly driving without a license resulted in a still-standing bench warrant in Miami-Dade and the ensuing license suspension.
When questioned by police, Richardson, according to the report, “acknowledged knowing the victim is a minor and what he was doing was wrong especially because he was her mentor and coach.”
Richardson told police he volunteered as a track and football coach “because ‘it is not about the money. It is about being with the kids and seeing them succeed.’”