Lawsuit against a youth football coach from a municipality in l’Horta, Valencia, alleging sexual abuse of minors and production of child pornography, has brought to light more than 50,000 files linked to pedophilia. During today’s second session of the oral hearing in the Valencia State Court’s Second Division, focus centered on how pornographic material was discovered after the wife opened the computer. A box of gum concealed a flash drive stash inside a gym bag containing a child’s underwear.
The defense seeks to overturn the substantial burden of proof against the accused, who appears in the footage engaging in sexual activities with minors. The defendant’s spouse is also facing a pending case for revealing secrets after opening the flash drive allegedly storing pedophile material without the husband’s consent.
The defendant faces a potential sentence of 50 and a half years in prison, comprising three counts of sexual abuse of a person under 16, five counts for production of pornography involving children, and one count for possession of child pornography, as reported by the media group associated with this newspaper. The defendant exercised his right to not answer the Prosecutor, rarely responding to his lawyer’s questions.
He limited his testimony to describing events without explaining the contents of the USB devices and argued that the backpack was for private use, citing alcohol and medication use as possible mitigating factors in the event of conviction.
Consequently, the most extensive questioning centered on the wife, who sometimes appeared to be on trial herself, though the Chamber reminded that she had the right to refuse answering questions that could harm her safety or reveal secrets.
She recounted discovering her husband’s dirty laundry while he was finishing the washing, spotting a boy’s underwear in a backpack he claimed had been left on the terrace after a workout. The witness also identified several USB devices in the same backpack, a gift from a family member, which they used interchangeably to avoid implying privacy invasion by one party. She was away from home when the material was found, and they allegedly played videos for their two-year-old son, attempting to justify opening the contents without her husband’s permission.
“I was scared when I saw the footage; I did not know if he was abusing our son,” she admits. A mother’s obvious concern emerges after discovering that her partner and the father of their child possessed open pedophile material and children’s underwear in his backpack. She later saw her husband return and asked him to explain what had been taken.
The accused’s wife explained a night of being slightly intoxicated, stepping outside for air and turning off the doorbell to avoid waking their child. Regarding the footage she presented to the police, she stated that she opened the flash drive on the computer and saw its contents, recording the moment. “I always had an excuse, and that’s why I started recording. I did not want them to think I was crazy,” she says. She noted that she did not initially suspect the seriousness of the events but found it odd that children’s underwear was absent from their possessions that night. She recalled seeing an image of male genitalia on TV once.
When questioned about the earlier events, the husband claimed that it was common for actors he trained, aged between twelve and fourteen, to leave clothes in the locker rooms and take them away for return. The night she first saw such pornographic images on television, he attributed it to a virus.
The coach, who faced sexual abuse allegations, wore a hooded cap and a mask as he left the field. The coach was a representative for a children’s category team of a local football club in l’Horta, though the newspaper does not reveal the club name to protect minors’ anonymity. The club official acknowledged that the defendant, a professional soldier by trade, also coached despite lacking a coaching certificate, and that players of that age sometimes left clothes forgotten in locker rooms, supporting the defense’s described version.
The Children’s Mother Did Not Report Initially
The mother of three minors, a family friend, and the godfather of one of the children shown in the pornographic images allegedly recorded by the defendant initially refused to report the matter. At trial, when police footage emerged, she recognized her three children, and another witness admitted that he did not know his cousin had recorded the events.
The abuse of the three minors is alleged to have occurred on dates in 2014 when the mother was alone with the children at home or at a separate apartment, caring for her friend’s five, seven, and eight-year-old children. The mother argued that she did not report the matter to avoid starting a lengthy judicial process, claiming that the abuse occurred while the children slept to prevent them from understanding what was happening. She also feared that reporting could affect a divorce and custody outcomes.
Prosecution asserts three abuse cases involving sexual access to a friend’s children, plus an allegation involving the defendant’s cousin, who was also younger. It is claimed that the defendant used his privileged position as a youth coach to record moments when minors were nude in dressing rooms, then kept the recordings for personal use and illicit entertainment.