Girls coach charged with lewd behavior
San Leandro wrestling head allegedly made inappropriate contact <\/p>\n
By Ricci Graham, STAFF WRITER<\/p>\n
SAN LEANDRO ” The girls wrestling coach at San Leandro High School has been charged with committing a lewd act against a child while the two were attending a wrestling match in December.<\/p>\n
Dylan Souza ” who was placed on leave without pay after the allegations surfaced in December ” was charged by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office on Feb. 28 with one count of committing a lewd act against a child, according to court records.<\/p>\n
Michael Martinez, assistant superintendent of human resources for the San Leandro Unified School District, said Thursday that Souza, 31, was placed on administrative leave on Dec. 7, shortly after a female wrestler complained that he had made inappropriate contact with her.<\/p>\n
San Leandro police Lt. Marc DeCoulode said an investigation was conducted by his department and the report was forwarded to the district attorney’s office.<\/p>\n
DeCouloude said the district attorney reviewed the department’s report and issued a warrant for Souza’s arrest on Feb. 28 ” the same day Souza was taken into custody and booked at the San Leandro Police Department headquarters. <\/p>\n
Efforts to reach Souza for comment Thursday were unsuccessful.<\/p>\n
The charge followed a nearly three-month investigation that involved a number of interviews, DeCoulode said. Administrators for the school district also investigated the allegation, Superintendent Christine Lim said.<\/p>\n
“Without going into detail, I feel very comfortable with the investigating process and the reporting aspect of it, “Lim said. “I take this very seriously.”<\/p>\n
Because the charge involved a minor, both Deputy District Attorney Robert Hartman and DeCoulode could offer only scant details. But according to court records, the incident between Souza and a 14-year-old wrestler occurred while the two were attending a wrestling match on Dec. 6.<\/p>\n
The victim told investigators that she was sitting in front of Souza in the stands when Souza made inappropriate contact with her while rubbing her shoulders, court documents show.<\/p>\n
According to court records, Judge Alfred Delucchi released Souza after he posted $60,000 bail. The judge also issued an order prohibiting Souza from making contact with any minor girl. Souza also is not permitted to attend any of the school’s wrestling matches.<\/p>\n
Hartman said Souza is scheduled to report back to the Hayward Hall of Justice on March 24 with an attorney. He is expected to enter a plea at that time, Hartman said.<\/p>\n
Souza was hired by the San Leandro district as a campus supervisor in April 1997 and started coaching the girls wrestling team in November 1997, Martinez said.<\/p>\n
As a result of the incident, Lim said, the district is making changes to its sexual harassment policy.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to be implementing the training program for all of the staff, “Lim said.<\/p>\n
Asked if she thinks it is appropriate for men to coach young girls, particularly in contact sports such as wrestling where coaches are involved in a great deal of hands-on demonstrations, Lim said, “It’s certainly a question for us to consider.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Girls coach charged with lewd behaviorSan Leandro wrestling head allegedly made inappropriate contact By Ricci Graham, STAFF WRITER SAN LEANDRO ” The girls wrestling coach at San Leandro High School has been charged with committing a lewd act against a child while the two were attending a wrestling match in December. Dylan Souza ” who […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wrestling"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":6}},"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2B7Di-eH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wrestlingpod.com\/wrestling-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}