James Javier Cruz, 29, head girls' soccer coach at Alamogordo since 2003 and girls' JV basketball coach, is charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor, the Alamogordo Daily News reported.

Cruz, who led the girls' soccer team to the state tournament three years running and was a star soccer player himself at Alamogordo High, was arrested Wednesday on five counts of having sex with a minor and three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, the Daily News said.

Police said the state Department of Public Safety was told by the school district on Tuesday that a coach may have had a sexual relationship with a member of one of his teams, the paper reported.

A DPS investigation led to Cruz's arrest the following day, according to the Daily News.

Cruz was jailed at the Otero County Detention Center on a $90,000 bond, the paper said.

A 1998 graduate of Alamogordo High School where as a soccer player he was twice named district player of the year, Cruz spent one year as assistant girl's soccer coach in 2002 and became head coach in 2003, leading the team to the state tournament in 2005, 2006 and 2007, the Daily News reported.

Cruz also coached at the city recreation center, but Mayor Steve Brockett told the Daily News: "There's no evidence anything like this happened at the rec center."

Cruz does not teach at the high school, the paper said.

Meanwhile, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported today that a 23-year-old volunteer track and field coach at Mayfield High School allegedly confessed to having a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old student.

In a story we passed along on Thursday, James Carroll pleaded not guilty at his April 6 arraignment to eight counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor and three counts of criminal sexual penetration by a school employee or volunteer.

Carroll, who has not coached at Mayfield for more than a month, was employed as an EMT with a Las Cruces ambulance service and remained jailed Thursday at the Dona Ana County Detention Center on a $125,000 bond, the Sun-News reported today.

According to the Sun-News, court records show that Carroll "admitted to knowing what he did was wrong and that it got to the point that he could not control himself."

The teenager told authorities at a safe-house interview that she and Carroll were alone in his car twice earlier this year and met a third time at his apartment, and that the relationship recently ended, the Sun-News said.

According to State Police, Carroll confirmed the girl's allegations, the Sun-News reported. 

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