A soccer coach in Tennessee has been arrested after police said they found hundreds of videos and images of him appearing to rape unconscious boys on a phone he left behind at a restaurant.
Police in Franklin, Tenn., said in a Sunday statement that Camilo Hurtado Campos, 63, recruited boys onto his soccer team and then sexually abused them. They said Campos drugged and raped at least 10 boys as young as 9 years old and recorded footage of his crimes.
On Monday, police said that five additional victims had come forward after learning of Campos’s arrest.
Campos is being held in custody at the Williamson County Jail on charges of raping a child and sexually exploiting a minor, police spokesperson Lt. Charles Warner said in an email. In Tennessee, rape of a child is a Class A felony that carries a minimum sentence of 25 years in prison. Sexual exploitation of a minor is a Class B felony when the suspect possesses more than 100 images or materials that show a minor engaged in sexual activity.
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It was not immediately clear if Campos had legal representation.
Police said employees at a local restaurant found a customer’s phone and went through it to try to reach the owner so they could return it. After stumbling upon “unconscionable videos and pictures of children,” they called the police, the department said.
Detectives found “hundreds of disturbing videos and pictures” on the phone, the department said. “In many of them, Campos recorded himself raping unconscious boys between approximately 9 and 17 years old,” its statement said.
Share this articleSharePolice described Campos as a popular coach. They said he “frequented nearby school playgrounds … where he approached kids and recruited them as players on his team.”
“After gaining their trust, Campos invited many of the kids to his home where he drugged and then raped them,” police added.
Campos has lived in Franklin for two decades, police said. The city in central Tennessee, about 20 miles south of Nashville, has a population of about 87,000.
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His arrest is the latest in a string of allegations of sexual abuse of minors in U.S. sports. The high-profile case of Larry Nassar, a former doctor for the national women’s gymnastics team who was found guilty of sexually abusing girls and women under his care, shined a spotlight on the issue. More recently, three former members of the U.S. snowboarding team said in a lawsuit that former coach Peter Foley sexually abused or harassed them over decades without action from the sport’s governing bodies. Foley has denied wrongdoing, according to the Associated Press.
Nashville news station WSMV4 spoke to Franklin residents who said Campos lived between Liberty Elementary School and Freedom Intermediate School, across from a soccer field. The schools could not be reached for comment early Monday.
Police said they have identified three victims and are working with schools in the area to identify the others. They added that because the boys were unconscious when they were raped, some may not be aware of what happened to them.
Police said they expect to file more charges against Campos as their investigation unfolds.
“We are no where close to the end of our review of the evidence in this horrific case,” they said.
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