Joshua Rico’s place of employment was the Pecos Independent School District in the state of New Mexico.
The fraudulent sextortion scheme perpetrated by a middle school basketball coach over the course of nearly three years and involving at least four students at the school came to light after the coach made the critical error of provoking the incorrect teenager.
He will spend the next three decades behind bars in federal custody.
Joshua Rico, age 27, admitted in his plea deal that he had used phony social media identities under the names “Chris Lujan,” “Erik Romero,” and his own identity in order to “threaten, coerce, and manipulate” his victims into “engaging in sexual activity with him.” Rico was charged with one count of sexual battery and one count of attempted sexual battery.
My objective was to use my own Snapchat account, in addition to ones I manufactured to look as fictitious males, to attract young people into sending me sexually explicit photographs and videos via Snapchat. I also planned to use accounts I made to appear as myself. As part of the agreement he made with the court, Rico was had to confess in court documents that he had engaged in sexual activity with “at least one minor.”
