Soccer coach found guilty of sex charge

Suspended Howard University soccer coach Joseph Okoh, 41, was convicted this evening of using the Internet to solicit sex with a minor.

A Louisa County jury of six men and six women deliberated about an hour before rendering the guilty verdict.

Prosecutors argued successfully that Okoh was duped into driving to Louisa for a sexual tryst with what they said was a 13-year-old Internet chat partner.

Okoh could be sentenced to from 5 to 30 years behind bars. The jury is now deliberating its sentencing recommendation.

Earlier today, Okoh testified the Internet conversation he had with what turned out to be an undercover agent was "one big charade."

Okoh said the Yahoo chat service he was a member of required participants to be at least 18 years old.

Okoh said that when the undercover investigator contacted him Jan. 25 posing as a 13-year-old girl, he assumed the entire conversation was fictitious and never believed the identity of the person on the other end.

Authorities said the chat began in the afternoon, became sexually oriented and then became sexually explicit as Okoh drove from his Arlington home to Louisa County to meet the other person.

As his attorney questioned him in court, Okoh noted that he gave his age as 60, then 35, during the online conversation. Okoh was 40 at the time.

His sexual suggestions were just a way to keep the conversation going given the context in a romance chat room, Okoh testified.

"This whole conversation was one big charade, one big lie," he told jurors.

An investigator with the Louisa County Sheriff's Office who posed as the teenage girl testified yesterday that Okoh arranged a tryst, then showed up the night of the conversation with the Smirnoff Ice he had been asked to bring.

He was arrested when he arrived for the meeting.

During cross-examination and in closing arguments, Rusty McGuire, Louisa's deputy commonwealth's attorney, said Okoh knew he was trying to set up a sexual encounter with a minor. The undercover police officer repeatedly gave the age 13, McGuire said.

Within a minute of starting the conversation, Okoh asked where the person on the other end of the conversation lived, the prosecutor said. Okoh asked her to turn off the archive function of the instant messaging program so the conversation couldn't be recorded, McGuire said.

Okoh asked if the girl was in the eighth grade and asked about parents and siblings, the prosecutor said.

During closing arguments, McGuire noted that Okoh was typing on a laptop computer while driving from Arlington to Louisa County en route to the meeting.

"It's surprising there was no accident," McGuire said. "That's how excited he is to be meeting this child."

Defense attorney Paul Taylor reminded jurors that Okoh testified that had he believed that the person on the other end of the chat was actually a 13-year-old, he would not have driven to Louisa County.

"He's a man who came to Louisa County to see who he was chatting with," Taylor said. "That's not a crime."

Okoh had finished his first year as a soccer coach with Howard at the time of his arrest, and the school suspended him. He previously had coached on the college level and coached middle school-aged girls teams without complaints, court testimony showed. Contact Calvin R. Trice at (540: 932-3674 or .