OAKLAND — A former Bay Area youth swim coach has accepted a three-year prison term and two sexual abuse convictions as part of a plea deal with prosecutors, court records show.
David Teel, 57, was formally sentenced in November and transferred to North Kern State Prison on Dec. 6, records show. The plea deal ends a prosecution that began in 2020, when Teel was accused of sexually abusing a swim student during her teens.
Teel pleaded no contest to two counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, both felonies. In return, prosecutors dropped dozens of other sex abuse counts, records show.
The sexual abuse occurred in the early 2000s, but the victim didn’t cooperate with police until 2019, out of fear her identity would be publicly revealed if she did. She testified in 2022 — at Teel’s preliminary hearing — that Teel sexually abused her up to four times a day during swim lessons.
“At least once a day, but that would be an easy day,” she said on the witness stand.
While she didn’t agree to a police interview until 2019, she did report Teel to a national governing body for swim competitions in 2010, resulting in the organization banning Teel from coaching, records show. When he was charged, Teel had moved out of the Bay Area and was living in Boston.
Teel spent a grand total of 32 days in jail before the plea deal was finalized, and can reduce his three-year sentence by half with good behavior, records show. At his preliminary hearing, his then-lawyer argued that the victim was lying to bolster a civil lawsuit over the sexual abuse and that other students disputed her claims.
The judge at Teel’s preliminary hearing advanced the case, saying that she was convinced by the victim’s testimony that there was probable cause to believe sexual abuse had occurred an “overwhelming” number of times, court records show.
