Former Orange County water polo coach Bahram Hojreh convicted on multiple counts of sexual assault
A Southern California water polo coach was convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault Tuesday in Santa Ana.
Bahram Hojreh, 46, was convicted of 22 felony counts including lewd or lascivious acts with a minor under 14; lewd acts on a child 14 or 15 years old; sexual penetration by a foreign object of a minor; and sexual battery by fraud for nine victims. Hojreh was convicted of misdemeanor counts of simple assault on a 10th girl.
Hojreh is scheduled to be sentenced on January 12, 2023.
Bahram Hojreh coached the girls in Los Alamitos at the Joint Forces Training Base pool and at Kennedy High School in La Palma. The girls were members of the International Water Polo team.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Raquel Cooper said "most of the abuse occurred" at the Joint Forces Training Base pool.
"It took place during one-on-one instruction in 2012 through the summer of 2017 and beginning of 2018," Cooper said. Hojreh began coaching at Kennedy High School in the summer of 2017.
The USA Water Polo organization settled lawsuits in the case for $13.85 million in 2021.
John Barnett, Bahram Hojreh's defense attorney, said Hojreh is a "famed water polo coach" who coached for 27 years and who garnered 10 national championships.
Jurors deliberated for about three days and reached verdicts at the end of Tuesday, Nov. 15. The verdicts were read aloud Wednesday morning in court.
Deputy D.A. Cooper said one of Hojreh's accusers "became suspicious" that others were experiencing abuse in late fall of 2017. Several teens on the team met later that winter to discuss the situation. The teens all agreed to tell their parents about the alleged abuse, Cooper said. Others came forward in 2019, Cooper said.
Joshua Christopher Owens, a former part-time water polo and swim coach at Kennedy High School, pleaded guilty in 2018 to sexually assaulting three teenage girls, admitting to assaults between September 2014 through June 2016.
Bahram Hojreh called a team meeting after Owens was arrested and encouraged them to report any abuse, according to defense attorney Barnett.
