WOODLAND — A former youth softball coach is facing a possible life sentence in prison after a Yolo County jury convicted him Thursday of sexually assaulting two of his former teenage clients.
Jurors declared Jack “Buck” Maldonado Thomas guilty of forcible sexual assault of a minor, sexual battery on a minor and first-degree burglary in connection with his offenses, which prosecutors said occurred in West Sacramento during the summer of 2018 as he trained the 15- and 16-year-old girls whose parents paid thousands of dollars to for private lessons.
“Mr. Thomas used his notoriety as a hitting coach to gain the trust of the parents and the minor victims in order to accomplish his sexual assaults,” District Attorney Jeff Reisig said in a news release. “We are grateful this trial gave these brave victims a voice and glad that the jury did justice in this case.”
Thomas’ public defender, Emily Fisher, declined to comment on the verdict Friday. Thomas’ sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 30 before Yolo Superior Court Judge Paul Richardson, who presided over the nearly month-long trial.
Prosecutor Rachel Raymond told the jury during opening statements last month that Thomas, 43, sexually battered and assaulted the victims while giving them sports massages and positioning their bodies during batting instruction. The older girl told authorities the assaults escalated when she traveled to Thomas’ Arizona home for additional training.
Fisher, who acknowledged in her opening remarks that her client could be “crass,” “vulgar” and “rough around the edges,” denied the assaults, suggesting instead that the younger girl’s father manufactured the allegations when Thomas, who diagnosed the teen with a back injury that curtailed her training, refused to refund the family’s $4,500 fee.
But additional victims from Arizona and Nevada also came forward, including three now-adult women who testified that Thomas’ inappropriate conduct with them dated back more than a decade.
West Sacramento police brought the case in cooperation with the Sheriff’s Office in Maricopa County, Ariz., where authorities arrested Thomas on Jan. 4, 2019, on suspicion of assaulting the 16-year-old girl. It was unclear from online court records whether he still faces charges there.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
Sex-assault trial begins for former softball coach
