Swim Coach Pleads Guilty To Statutory Rape Of Student Athlete

LAKE FOREST, CA — A Lake Forest area coach professed a guilty plea on Tuesday, related to the rape of one of his swim athletes.

A 23-year-old University High School Irvine swim coach pleaded guilty Monday to statutory rape and was immediately sentenced to 15 days of community service in lieu of jail.

Coleman Michael Pickell was also placed on four years of formal probation, according to court records. After Pickell was arrested in October, Irvine Unified School District officials said he was no longer a coach or had any contact with students at the school or throughout the district.

The charges against Pickell, including two counts of sexual penetration of a minor, two counts of unlawful sex with a minor three years younger than the defendant and a single count of oral copulation of a minor, all felonies, were dismissed, according to court records.

After Pickell was arraigned in December, his attorney noted the victim in the case would turn 18 at the end of January.

He said the sexual contact occurred a "few months shy of her 18th birthday."

Pickell was also a boys' water polo coach at the school, but not a member of its teaching staff, according to Irvine police.

Pickell met the victim last summer, according to the Orange County District Attorney's Office. He took the teen to a hotel room Oct. 8, prosecutors said.

When her parents found her at the hotel the next morning they called police, prosecutors said.

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