SANTA CRUZ — A 49-year-old Santa Cruz volleyball coach was charged Wednesday with sending harmful material to a minor and failing to register as a sex offender, both felonies that could lead to more than three years in prison, attorneys said.
In Santa Cruz County Superior Court, Club Shoreline Volleyball coach Kjell Nilssen arrived with more than a dozen supporters. He is also charged with misdemeanor working with a minor and felony annoying or molesting a minor with a prior offense, said prosecutor Steve Moore.
Kjell Nilssen did not enter a plea. Judge John Salazar ordered Nilssen back in court March 19. He remains out of jail in lieu of $20,000 bail, according to jail records.
Nilssen was arrested Feb. 12 on suspicion of attempted sex with a 16-year-old girl.
Prosecutors said the felony charge of annoying or molesting a minor with a prior could include physical touching. Yet Nilssen’s attorney, George Gigarjian, said the charges focus on the accusation that Nilssen sent inappropriate material to a minor.
“He has good family and community support,” Gigarjian said outside court.
Deputies said Nilssen recently contacted a girl for more than 18 months through Facebook and WhatsApp, a mobile messaging application. Nilssen knew the girl from about four years ago through his time as a volunteer drill coach at Club Shoreline Volleyball. The girl’s parents discovered the relationship in January, ended it and notified authorities.
Sheriff’s detective April Skalland said Nilssen should not have been working with a minor at all because he is a convicted sex offender from a 2001 case in Santa Clara County.
In that case, Nilssen pleaded guilty to felony sodomy, felony oral copulation with a person younger than 18 and felony sexual penetration with a foreign object with a person younger than 18, said Santa Clara County prosecutor Luis Ramos.
Nilssen was sentenced to seven months in Santa Clara County Jail and three years of formal probation, Ramos said. Nilssen was ordered to register as a sex offender for life, not work with minors, not possess weapons and to stay away from the victim, according to court records.
Santa Cruz County deputies said he failed to register as a sex offender in August. Gigarjian, Nilssen’s attorney, said outside court that Nilssen in recent years had not coached teams but rather conducted “drill clinics” with players. The drills were always with another adult, Gigarjian said.
Nilssen no longer conducts drills or coaches players at Club Shoreline, Gigarjian said. Nilssen’s wife, Sissy Nilssen, also resigned as director of the club. Sissy and Kjell Nilssen’s names appear on the company’s Santa Cruz County business license. The club’s website is no longer active.
Sheriff’s detectives said Kjell Nilssen instructed Club Shoreline players at a gym at Good Shepherd Catholic School in Santa Cruz and a gym shared by Twin Lakes Christian Church and Twin Lakes Christian School in Aptos. No students from the schools or church are involved in the case, authorities said.
Good Shepherd leaders said they had never seen Nilssen on campus. Twin Lakes leaders said it’s possible he was on campus four years ago during open gym nights on Thursdays, and that they have suspended open use of the gym as a response to the case.
Deputies mistakenly said earlier that open gym was on Saturdays.
“Apparently in 2010 or 2011, without our permission or knowledge, Shoreline Volleyball Club would run drills at TLC (Twin Lakes) before our Thursday open gym nights, after the gym was unlocked but in the half hour or so before the league began playing their games,” said the Rev. Rene Schlaepfer of Twin Lakes Christian Church.
“Now we are putting together a solution to this problem of unauthorized groups using our facilities in between authorized reservations,” Schlaepfer wrote in an email. “We had already taken every recommended precaution in all of our camps, schools and other ministries to prevent crimes against minors — instituting fingerprinting, FBI background checks, supervision policies, etc. And now that we are alerted to the fact that unauthorized access to our facilities has occurred in the past, we will make certain to eliminate it in order to continue to make our campus a safe place for everyone.”
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office asks anyone with information to call 831-471-1121 or contact Skalland at 831-454-7647 or shf206@co.santa-cruz.ca.us. —— (c)2015 the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) Visit the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) at www.santacruzsentinel.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC AMX-2015-02-26T05:17:00-05:00
