Former Orange County cheer coach convicted of molesting 10 young cheerleaders
An Orange County jury on Monday convicted a former cheerleading coach of 23 felonies for molesting ten young athletes in the early 2000s, according to prosecutors.
The Orange County District Attorney's Office said Erick Joseph Kristianson, 46, of Antioch, Tennessee, was convicted after his 2023 arrest in Fargo, North Dakota and subsequent extradition back to Southern California.
Kristianson was found guilty of 11 felony counts of lewd or lascivious acts upon a minor under age 14 years of age, four felony counts of lewd or lascivious acts upon a child age 14 or 15, six felony counts of sexual penetration by foreign object of a minor under 18, and two felony counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object of a minor under 16.
His youngest victim was 9 years old, prosecutors said.
He'll be sentenced to prison in a hearing on March 19 in Santa Ana. He's facing a maximum sentence of 165 years to life, plus an additional six years, eight months in state prison.
"For decades, Erick Kristianson used cheerleading gyms in Orange County and across the country as a kind of perverted catalog from which to select the next young girl he was going to molest," said DA Todd Spitzer. "He was hiding in plain sight, a trusted coach banking on the fact that he could trust his young victims not to say anything about the abuse they were enduring. Pedophiles will never stop until law enforcement stops them. And this conviction ensures that these young women have a voice to speak out against the sexual abuse they endured as children."
The DA's Office says Kristianson was a competitive cheerleading coach for Magic All-Stars between 2002 and 2005 and served as assistant coach at Trabuco Hills High School in Mission Viejo from 2004 to 2006. At those stops, he molested eight young girls in Orange County, prosecutors said. The two other victims knew him through a family member and through a South Orange County YMCA sleep-away camp, where he worked as a counselor in 1999 and 2000.
Many of his accusers came forward in 2022 when he was arrested in Daytona Beach, Florida, on suspicion of masturbating on camera to three children between the ages of 11 and 13, as well as touching a 13-year-old girl inappropriately.
Those victims were athletes in a Daytona Beach cheer club he worked at.
News reports from that arrest made their way to Southern California, where a young woman reported that Kristianson molested her at age 14 when he was her cheer coach. She accused him of meeting up with her for lunch during school, when he'd take her to the beach or his home to engage in "sexual activity," prosecutors said.
His Orange County victims ranged from age 9 to 16. Of those victims, two told authorities that they quit cheerleading due to the abuse, while keeping it a secret at the time due to "fear and embarrassment."
Kristianson was arrested again in Kansas in August 2022 after allegedly exposing himself to three teenage girls while on a FaceTime call. He posted bond and was arrested the next year on the Orange County allegations.
No additional details were immediately made available.
