After 13-year-old Oscar Omar Hernandez was sexually assaulted and killed, allegedly by his soccer coach – who is an illegal alien who was also being investigated in at least two other sexual assault against a minor cases – there were lots of questions about how someone with such a checkered past could have possibly been in a position where he could work so closely with children. Now we have at least a few answers.
For those readers who didn’t see the original story, Mario Edgardo Garcia Aquino was charged with murdering Hernandez in late March while attempting a lewd act. More detailed information about what the lewd act was or how Hernandez was killed has not been made public yet by investigators, but Hernandez’s body was found in a ditch almost 100 miles away from Garcia Aquino’s house a few days after the boy had traveled to the coach’s house to help him make soccer jerseys. Just a few days before Hernandez’s body was found, but after he’d been killed, Garcia Aquino was charged with molesting a different player on the team after a lengthy investigation.
After Garcia Aquino was charged with that assault and with Omar’s murder, charges were filed against him in two additional unrelated sexual assault of a minor cases.
RedState requested information from Cal South Soccer and the Coast League, both of which Garcia Aquino’s team was once affiliated with, to determine if the coach had passed background checks, been fingerprinted or was certified in any way, and whether they were aware of investigations into his conduct by both the LA County Sheriffs Department and the LAPD. No response has been received. However, Cal South Soccer did issue a short statement to the Los Angeles Times saying:
“Our deepest sympathies go out to his family, teammates, and friends during this incredibly difficult time. We take player safety very seriously and will support law enforcement in any way we can.”
The Times also spoke to people involved in the local soccer community and Omar’s family and friends and report that “two people said [that Garcia Aquino] managed to avoid background checks” during his coaching career and eventually only coached in independent leagues that didn’t have the same oversight as those associated with the U.S. Soccer Federation. According to the Times:
“We can’t trust anyone,” said Marco Carballo, president of the Naciones Unidas Soccer League, who has spent more than 30 years working in local soccer, many of them at Whitsett Fields Park.
Still, why didn’t they make him persona non grata in the area by letting all of the independent leagues know about those suspicions?
Álvaro Chávez, director and president of the Spartans FC, which is affiliated with the US Soccer Federation, told the Los Angeles Times about his encounters with Garcia Aquino.
“About eight years ago, he wanted to join my club, but he never wanted to submit to his fingerprints,” he said, after which Chávez banned Garcia Aquino from his league.
Then, Chávez said, Garcia Aquino worked in independent leagues, where he:
“[A]cted as a team sports director, but would direct a team coach to fill out the registration forms. Although Garcia Aquino’s name would not appear on the paperwork, he would still travel to competitions and coach from the sidelines.”
That might have been somewhat true, but as RedState reported on April 8, Garcia Aquino’s name was listed on Huracan Valley’s team listing on Cal South Soccer Coast League’s website – which is affiliated with the U.S. Soccer Federation – as recently as 2022.
That league has not answered questions as to whether they’d performed a background check on Garcia Aquino, but its president, Jorge Rodriguez, told the LA Times that Garcia Aquino was “disaffiliated” by the league in 2022 “because of an alert in its registration system” triggered by an LAPD investigation into accusations he’d sexually assaulted a minor. Rodriguez told the LA Times that he told the coach, “You can’t be with the boys, not even near, not from far, you have to stay away from them until you solve this problem.” Rodriguez said that the coach denied the allegations, and did not participate in any other tournaments Rodriguez organized.
Omar’s family say they did not know about any prior complaints about Garcia Aquino, or they would have kept him away from the coach. They were not told that he skirted background checks at other leagues. The boy was trusting due to their upbringing in Honduras; he arrived in the United States just three years before he died.
“He came from Honduras and we grew up there in the countryside, so we don’t have people like that there, people who are so bad, so crazy,” she said.
According to reports, Hernandez’s mother collapsed on the sidewalk as the hearse carrying her son’s body pulled away from the funeral, and his brother “gripped Omar’s blue soccer jersey in his hands as the hearse pulled away.”
RedState will continue to follow developments in this story.
