The Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department is seeking the public’s help in obtaining more information about possible victims of a former Lompoc-area soccer coach facing multiple charges of child molestation with several juvenile players from teams he coached in the 1980s.
Terence Paul Stevens, 52, was a soccer coach in the Lompoc area in the mid- to late 1980s, according to a Sheriff’s Department statement issued Monday.
Stevens is accused of befriending several of the young players and molesting them, and two of the now-adult victims recently forward to Sheriff’s Department investigators.
Stevens moved to the San Diego area in the mid-1990s, where he continued coaching youth soccer. He was arrested in 2008 while visiting Yuma, Ariz.,, on charges of sexual conduct with a minor. He has since been convicted for that crime and is serving a prison sentence in Arizona.
In August of last year, Stevens was extradited to Santa Barbara County to answer to the local charges from the 1980s.
He is now facing 17 felony counts of lewd acts with a child, oral copulation of a minor and sodomy with a minor, all of which are related to the crimes committed against the two Lompoc-area victims.
Anyone with information about additional victims of Stevens is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Department Detective Bureau at 805.934.6170 or the Sheriff’s Anonymous Tip Line at 805.681.4171.
— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
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