Guilty! Christa Rene Tharp, Napa, California (arrested Jul 2011)

Discussion in 'Cougars' started by TMP, Sep 20, 2011.

  1. TMP

    TMP Himself

    tharp christa rene.jpg

    Name: Christa Rene Tharp

    Age: 33

    School: Napa High School, Napa Valley Unified School District, Napa, California

    Position: Softball coach (junior varsity)

    Victim: Girl, 16

    Napa Valley Register (26 July 2011): Napa High junior varsity softball coach arrested on suspicion of child molestation

    ABC Local 7 (27 July 2011): Softball coach arrested for alleged child molestation

    CBS San Francisco (27 July 2011): Napa Softball Coach Arrested For Alleged Child Molestation

    KTVU (27 July 2011): Napa Coach Arrested On Suspicion Of Child Molestation

    Napa Valley Register (2 Sept 2011): Softball coach back in jail in connection with additional sex charges

    Napa Valley Register (2 Sept 2011): Softball coach back in jail in connection with additional sex charges

    Tags:
     
    Napa High School, Napa Valley Unified School District, Napa, California, Christa Rene Tharp
    Last edited: Jan 4, 2015
  2. bigd70

    bigd70 Active Member

    Napa Valley Register (10 Nov 2011): Ex-softball coach gets nearly four years for sex crimes

    A former Napa High School junior varsity softball coach was sentenced Thursday to almost four years in state prison for sex crimes against a 16-year-old girl whom she called from jail in violation of a court order.

    Calling the crimes a “monumental violation of trust,” Napa County Superior Court Judge Mark Boessenecker sentenced Christa Tharp to three years and eight months in state prison under a plea agreement with prosecutors.

    Napa County Deputy District Attorney Allison Haley argued for the maximum sentence after telling the court that Tharp had used another inmate’s calling card on Nov. 3 to call the victim from the Napa County jail where she has been housed since September.

    Haley then played the 5-minute tape of the conversation during which the girl is heard sobbing. During the call, Tharp asks the teenager for the name of the girl she’s “messin’ with,” and tells her she loves her and is not mad at her.

    Tharp also tells the victim not to tell anyone about the conversation.

    “You cannot tell anybody you talked to me,” Tharp is recorded as saying.

    According to authorities, Tharp, 34, lived with the girl’s family while she was separated from her husband. In July, Napa police arrested Tharp for alleged child molestation and booked her into the Napa County jail for suspected sex crimes against the girl committed between March and July.

    In August, while out on bail, Tharp met the victim on three separate occasions at Napa Valley College, Tulocay Cemetery and a motel in Cordelia in spite of a restraining order to stay away from the victim and her family, authorities said in court. She was jailed again after more charges were filed in connection with those encounters.

    On Thursday, Tharp’s attorney, Beverly Saxon Leonard, argued for leniency, saying her client has no prior criminal record and suffers from depression after losing her father a few years ago.

    While illegal, the relationship was consensual, her attorney said as Tharp sat next to her in shackles and blue jail uniform.

    “She has admitted and acknowledged full responsibility for her acts,” Saxon Leonard said. “She has made a huge mistake, an enormous mistake.”

    But Haley painted Tharp as a manipulator and a predator who waited for the parents to be asleep to have sex with their daughter. Tharp should be sentenced as if she were a male defendant, Haley said.

    The family has been devastated and the victim, whom Tharp isolated from others, no longer attends public school or plays sports, Haley said.

    The girl’s father, whom the Napa Valley Register is not identifying to protect the teenager’s privacy, addressed the court to ask for the maximum sentence, saying Tharp has shown no remorse for her actions.

    In an Oct. 21 letter to Boessenecker, the father said, “Christa is the adult in this situation. She should have never have had a sexual relationship with my daughter, but the fact is, she did. That in itself is atrocious in my mind. Beyond that, she isolated our daughter from her friends, softball teammates and her sister,” he said.

    Because Tharp was his daughter’s coach, he had thought she had his daughter’s best interest at heart, he said.

    Instead, he said, “Christa was grooming and isolating my daughter so she could be with her exclusively for the long term.”

    “My daughter’s trust and the trust of many others has also been violated beyond repair. This goes deeper that just my family. It involves our whole community in Napa.

    “Christa was the JV softball coach at Napa High and a head coach for the Express Softball organization. Everyone involved in those organizations and all the peripheral people have been affected and appalled by this betrayal,” he said.

    According to the probation report, Tharp was fired in September from her job as an acting supervisor and communications director at Napa State Hospital, where she had worked 11 years.

    In a letter to the court, a supervisor at Napa State said that Tharp was an outstanding employee and caring individual.

    She was sentenced under a plea agreement reached in October in which she pleaded no contest to oral copulation on someone under the age of 18, sexual penetration with a foreign object and child molestation in exchange for a more lenient sentence.

    A “no contest” plea has the same immediate effect as a “guilty” plea, according to legal writings.

    After the hearing, Saxon Leonard said the sentence was a “result that was not unexpected.” She has not spoken to her client about filing an appeal, she said.

    Haley said Tharp could be eligible for parole in 22 months.

    Haley said, “This defendant has shown nothing but flagrant disregard for court orders and a profound disrespect for the victim and her parents. She earned the prison sentence handed to her by this court this morning.”

    Tharp, who did not address the court Thursday, has to register as a sex offender after her release from prison, court records show.
     
  3. bigd70

    bigd70 Active Member

  4. TMP

    TMP Himself

    Thanks for the updates! :)