Two women who allege they were sexually abused for years by a high school wrestling coach in Orange County have filed a lawsuit alleging officials at two school districts ignored warning signs and failed to protect them from the predatory coach, who allegedly impregnated one of them when she was 16.

The suit was filed late Thursday, June 12, in Orange County Superior Court against the Orange and Tustin unified school districts and 28-year-old Anthony Oscar Alcala, who coached girls wrestling teams at both El Modena and Foothill high schools. Alcala also coached football at El Modena.

The women, identified in the lawsuit as Plaintiff One and Plaintiff Two, also gave an emotional interview with the Southern California News Group in the hope their stories will give other possible victims of Alcala the courage to come forward.

“What happened to me should never have happened, and I believe it could have been prevented,” said Plaintiff Two, the woman who got pregnant. “No student should have to go through what I did, and I want to do my part to make schools and sports programs safer for everyone. It’s deeply personal to me because I know how it feels to be vulnerable and not have the protection in place.”

The Orange County Sheriff’s Department — acting on a tip from the U.S. Center for SafeSport, a national organization dedicated to stopping sexual, physical and emotional abuse of athletes — arrested Alcala in April on suspicion of multiple felonies, including having sex with a minor. Investigators subsequently interviewed Plaintiff One, who is now 22, and Plaintiff Two, who is 19.

Alcala, who according to public records lives in Norwalk, remains free from custody on bail while awaiting trial.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, accuses Alcala of sexual assault and sexual battery from 2017 to 2023 and the school districts of negligent hiring and supervision.

Plaintiff One and Plaintiff Two say they didn’t know each other well while attending El Modena, having spent just a year together on the girls wrestling team. However, they are now forever intrinsically bound through a shared pain allegedly inflicted by Alcala in darkened school equipment closets, hotel rooms and automobiles.

“I get nightmares a lot and anxiety attacks,” Plaintiff One said, adding that she still feels overwhelmed by flashbacks from the abuse. “There are moments where I just cry all day.”

Jemma Dunn, an attorney with the Costa Mesa law firm Greenberg Gross who is representing the two victims, praised her clients for speaking out.

“It’s a privilege to represent these brave young women, whose strength in coming forward is nothing short of extraordinary,” Dunn said. “Their unwavering courage is both humbling and inspiring — and has the power to drive real, lasting change.”

Officials in the Orange and Tustin school districts declined to comment.

A pattern of alleged abuse

Plaintiff One, who had participated in jiu-jitsu and kickboxing since elementary school, recalled that Alcala began grooming her in 2017 when she was a sophomore grappler at El Modena. He constantly praised her athletic prowess, provided her with private training and gave her food.

Alcala’s preferential treatment escalated to the point where he was routinely driving Plaintiff One alone in his car to wrestling practices and tournaments, in violation of school rules, which should have triggered the suspicions of El Modena personnel, the suit states.

Alcala also allegedly insisted that Plaintiff One participate in close-contact wrestling demonstrations that he would conduct in front of other students and staff. Plaintiff One said that Alcala frequently had erections that she could feel on her body as he demonstrated various moves.

Alcala began sexually abusing Plaintiff One while she was still a 15-year-old sophomore, by groping her breasts and then raping her multiple times, the suit states. The sexual assaults allegedly continued during her junior and senior years at various Orange County hotel rooms, inside his Toyota Prius, and within the wrestling facilities on the El Modena campus.

But Alcala’s tight grip on Plaintiff One was removed during the 2020 outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted activities at El Modena. After graduating from the school, she briefly attended an out-of-state college but dropped out because of the emotional toll from the abuse.

“My life kind of went to s—,” Plaintiff One said. “It kind of went to hell and made me not want to pursue a career.”

After Plaintiff One left El Modena, Alcala began targeting Plaintiff Two, a sophomore on the wrestling team.

Used private message app

Plaintiff Two said Alcala created a group text chat for the team and slowly migrated his conversations with her to the private messaging app GroupMe, where they became more frequent and personal. “He wasn’t texting me as my coach anymore,” Plaintiff Two said. “He was texting me as if he were one of my friends.”

During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Alcala — without school authorization — took wrestling mats from El Modena, had the wrestling team load them into a U-Haul truck, and then took them to a warehouse for clandestine practices, Plaintiff Two said. Occasionally, she said, she was the only team member attending the secret practices.

Plaintiff Two said Alcala took her on dates to restaurants, provided her with gift cards, and gave her driving lessons. Then, during the fall semester of her sophomore year, when she was 15, he took her virginity, the suit alleged.

In the first half of the 2020-21 school year, Alcala purportedly was forced to resign from El Modena for using its facilities while pandemic restrictions were in place.

Warning signs ignored

That same school year, Plaintiff Two began participating in an in-person COVID-19 program at El Modena, where some students would come to the campus for virtual learning.

The suit states Plaintiff Two quickly realized El Modena was not enforcing attendance rules. From January to April 2021, she was dropped off at school each day but frequently did not attend the required in-person classes and left campus with Alcala or friends.

“At least two to three times a week, Alcala would pick Plaintiff Two up on campus property and drive her off campus, where he repeatedly sexually assaulted her,” the suit says. “Inexplicably, it took 4 months of chronic absenteeism that led to numerous failing grades before anyone at El Modena noticed that Plaintiff Two was not participating in on-campus learning. Alcala repeatedly raped Plaintiff Two during this period of time when OUSD utterly failed to supervise her as a student.”

In one instance, Plaintiff Two brought Alcala to her wrestling match at El Modena, raising the suspicions of another coach, who reported to school staff and administrators that he believed Alcala was exploiting her, the suit states.

Educators are considered mandatory reporters and, as such, are required by law to report suspected sexual abuse to police or child services authorities. Some Southern California educators have been arrested for allegedly failing to fulfill their duties. Additionally, the Redlands Unified School District was placed on notice by the state for failing to report suspected abusers within its ranks following a year-long investigation by the Southern California News Group.

After Alcala was hired to coach wrestling at Foothill, he pressured Plaintiff Two to transfer from El Modena. When her parents learned Alcala would be coaching her again, they gave their blessing.

“They were like, ‘Foothill is a good school,’ ” Plaintiff Two said in her interview. “And my parents knew him, and they trusted him. So they were like, ‘OK, that’s cool.’ “

The close relationship between Alcala and Plaintiff Two raised the eyebrows of some Foothill employees, but none of them intervened, according to the suit.

In January 2022, an assistant wrestling coach at Foothill noticed an interaction between Alcala and Plaintiff Two that he felt was suspicious. The coach documented the encounter in a written statement that made its way to the athletic director. In it, he said, “From the looks of it, I believe there to be a dangerous, inappropriate grooming situation,” the suit alleges.

A month later, another assistant coach allegedly reported to an assistant principal at Foothill that he believed that there was an inappropriate relationship between Alcala and Plaintiff Two. The suit states that, in written correspondence, the coach and assistant principal debated over which of them had a duty to notify authorities as mandatory reporters.

Brian Williams, another Greenberg Gross attorney and co-counsel for both plaintiffs, said failures by Orange and Tustin school officials to supervise Alcala are appalling. “These schools failed in their most basic duty, which is to keep children safe,” he said.  “Their inaction allowed this predator to prey on vulnerable girls for years.”

Coach pays for abortion

Also in February 2022, Plaintiff Two took a self-administered pregnancy test that confirmed she was pregnant. Alcala allegedly became angry, questioning paternity and hurling derogatory comments at her.

Alcala then immediately drove Plaintiff Two to a walk-in clinic in Van Nuys that offered same-day abortions. Although the clinic staff informed Alcala that Plaintiff Two would need to return the following day due to understaffing, Alcala aggressively insisted on a same-day abortion, giving the teen no choice or opportunity to reconsider the procedure, the suit states.

Plaintiff Two said the abortion was extremely traumatic, in part due to her Catholic upbringing. “I felt numb because I was like, I’m going to hell,” she said.

The day after the abortion, which Plaintiff Two hid from her family, coaches, teammates and friends, Alcala allegedly demanded sex from her, which was strictly against medical advice. It is estimated in the lawsuit that Alcala raped Plaintiff Two up to 30 times during her senior year at Foothill High.

Plaintiff Two didn’t muster up the courage to report Alcala to SafeSport until after she graduated and began attending an out-of-state college on a wrestling scholarship. It was about that time that she learned that Plaintiff One also had been victimized. Both plaintiffs are now allies in criminal and civil proceedings against Alcala.

“For me, this isn’t just about justice,” Plaintiff Two said. “It’s about making sure future students are protected and have a safe environment to learn, grow and participate in sports without the shadow of harm hanging over them.”