Coach arrested in sexting case
SAN JOSE >> An assistant coach at the prominent Quick Silver Swimming club — who also trained teens with several other teams and schools in San Jose — has been arrested after police say he solicited and exchanged sexually explicit text messages and images with young swimmers and later discouraged them from talking to investigators.
It’s the second child-predator case involving a Quick Silver-affiliated employee in the past decade — a coach for its predecessor, San Jose Aquatics, was convicted on a score of child molestation charges in 2009. There are also accusations that the swim club knew about the allegations for several months before alerting authorities.
San Jose resident Timothy Nguyen, 25, was arrested Thursday and has since been charged with four misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a child under the age of 18, and three felony counts of intimidating or persuading a victim, according to San Jose police. He was arraigned Tuesday and is free after posting $190,000 bail.
Police confirmed that they are also investigating whether the swim club delayed reporting the alleged crimes.
“We are looking into why it took a considerable amount of time to provide the police department with this information,” San Jose police Sgt. Enrique Garcia said. “We want to encourage people who have information about a child being exploited to contact law enforcement as soon as possible.”
Detectives with the SJPD Internet Crimes Against Children task force and Child Ex-
ploitation Detail contend that Nguyen exchanged texts with boys and girls who swam with Quick Silver between December 2015 and January of this year, and that the texts started off innocently about swimming.
But, police said, Nguyen eventually began asking them for “nude images and/ or sexual favors” — some of the teens were found to have sent pictures — and “attempted to pursue a dating relationship” with one of three identified victims.
As the investigation got underway, Nguyen allegedly told the victims not to cooperate with detectives, Garcia said.
According to police, they were alerted to the alleged crimes May 30 by the swim club, which told them one of the teens’ parents caught wind of the text exchanges.
But Dia Rianda, head coach of the Monterey County Aquatic Team and CEO of the Salinas Aquatic Center, said she learned about Nguyen’s purported activity at a Pleasanton swim meet April 1 from a Quick Silver coach. She also said she was given the impression that Nguyen was dismissed after at least one of the victims came forward to the swim club’s management.
Nguyen’s own LinkedIn page states that he stopped working at Quick Silver in March. The page also indicates he was a swim coach for other San Jose teams including Pioneer High School, Silver Creek Valley Country Club, Notre Dame High School and West Coast Aquatics.
As of Monday, Nguyen was still listed in the employee database at Pioneer High School but he hadn’t worked there since spring of 2016, said San Jose Unified School District Deputy Superintendent Stephen McMahon. Nguyen’s status was changed from inactive to ineligible when the district learned of his arrest.
McMahon said Nguyen passed background checks when he was hired by San Jose Unified in 2014.
“He came highly recommended,” said McMahon, adding that Nguyen “didn’t live up to those expectations, so the school went in another direction.”
McMahon said he couldn’t comment on what Quick Silver “did or didn’t do” in response to the allegations against Nguyen. But he noted that the district is quick to contact police and let them take the lead when one of its employees is accused of wrongdoing.
Rianda said she reported the allegations to USA Swimming. Quick Silver did not respond to multiple requests for comment Tuesday.
“I’m really upset. I tried to report this,” Rianda said. “The culture of predator coaches taking advantage of minor swimmers and grooming them has to stop now and cannot be allowed to continue.”
In a statement, USA Swimming said it reported the allegations to police on May 30 after being alerted by Quick Silver, but did not comment specifically on the time between when the alleged crimes became known and when they were reported.
“USA Swimming reported the information we had when we found it was credible,” the statement said. “It is our understanding that information we provided led to the eventual arrest.”
The swim club weathered an earlier scandal involving molestation charges against one of its coaches: Andrew King, a coach with Quick Silver predecessor San Jose Aquatics, pleaded no contest to 20 felony child molestation charges in 2009. That spurred a 2011 lawsuit accusing the club of failing to conduct a proper background check, though there was no public record of any criminal investigations involving King when he was hired in 2000.
A search of court records show no publicly known criminal history for Nguyen in Santa Clara County. That excludes any crimes committed as a minor, which in most cases are exempt from public record.
Robert Allard, the attorney who headed the lawsuit following the King conviction, called the purported delay in reporting Nguyen “inexplicable” given the prior case.
“They will not do what’s right unless they are absolutely forced to,” he said. “They basically hid it.”
In the current case, police have identified three victims and are looking for others. Anyone with information can contact Detective Michael O’Grady or Detective Sgt. Brian Spears at 408-537-7397, or leave a tip with Silicon Valley Crime Stoppers at 408-947-STOP or svcrimestoppers.org.