Former Sacramento high school coach convicted of sexual assault on student runner, 15
A former Sacramento youth and high school running coach has been convicted on eight counts of sexual assaulting a 15-year-old girl. He now faces a maximum of more than 16 years in prison.
A Sacramento Superior Court jury on Tuesday found Aaron Daniel Rios guilty of six counts of lewd and lascivious acts on a 15-year-old, one count of forcible digital penetration of a minor and one count of sexual battery by restraint.
Rios, 40, is a former track and cross-country coach at St. Francis Catholic High School. Rios also coached for Sac Elite Youth Running Club, which he founded.
Rios first met the victim, who was 13 years old at the time and who was a St. Francis student in 2020, when she joined Sac Elite in 2018, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.
Prosecutors said Rios exploited the statewide COVID-19 shutdowns that began in March 2020, which shuttered St. Francis’ running program and led Sac Elite to begin running in smaller groups, to grow closer to the victim.
“Rios began running more closely with the victim and gradually developed an inappropriate relationship with her,” the DA’s Office said in a Wednesday news release. “He downloaded an app on her phone that deletes messages after they are received so he could send her inappropriate messages.”
Rios kissed the victim on the mouth in July 2020, and in another incident around that time groped her while forcibly holding her.
The Sacramento Police Department arrested Rios in August 2020 on suspicion of sexual assault. St. Francis administrators in an email to parents that week said school officials had received “a report of inappropriate contact” involving Rios and a St. Francis student over the weekend, which they forwarded to law enforcement.
Rios had resigned as the school’s track and cross-country coach the preceding week, according to the email.
According to his since-deleted bio page on the St. Francis website, Rios joined the school’s cross-country program on an interim and assistant coach basis in 2015 and took over as head coach in 2016. Prior to that, he coached the girls cross country team at Del Campo High School between 2011 and 2014, according to his St. Francis bio.
Rios is scheduled for sentencing Dec. 14. He faces a maximum of 16 years and 8 months in prison, according to the DA.
