66 YEARS FOR SEX COACH

New York Post/Andy Geller

Fernando Colman, a 35 year old soccer coach from Elmont, was indicted on charges of sexuallyabusing six boys during team trips in 2001 that involved overnight stays at two Queens hotels. The19-count Queens indictment charged that Colman, who is a construction worker and serves as vicepresident of the Argentina Soccer School in Forest Hills, sodomized and sexually abused the sixboys who range in ages 11 to 14, during soccer competitions in the metropolitan area. Colman wasarrested in May 2002, on charges of sodomizing two of the players at his home on Ludlam Avenue inElmont, where he lived with his parents, and was held in the Nassau County jail on $110,000 bail.He denied in court that he fondled or sodomized the boys and accused them of lying to gain moneyfrom lawsuits. He admitted that he hugged and kissed the boys on the cheeks but told a NassauCounty Court jury in Mineola that he never touched them in and around their private areas or kissedthem on the mouth, as they claimed. He faced four counts of first degree sodomy, six counts offirst degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child. If convicted, he faced up to 50years in prison. According to jurors, the evidence against Colman just didn't add up. They clearedhim September 24, 2002, of 12 of the 14 charges against him. One juror even said that Colmanhimself was the most credible witness in the monthlong case. The jurors, however, believed Colmanplaced himself in far too intimate spaces with young boys, such as on mattresses, and convicted himon two charges of endangering the welfare of a child, misdemeanors.

A Queens jury convicted Colman of all 19 charges that he sexually abused several of his playersduring the overnight stays in the two motels in the borough in 2001. He is already serving 2 yearsin jail for the Nassau case and now faced as much as 100 years in prison when sentence isimposed.

Colman was slapped with a sentence of up to 66 years in the slammer yesterday for sodomizing thesix boys on his squad. Supreme Court Justice Richard Buchter sentenced him to 61 1/3 to 66 years injail.

(New York)