California Golf Coach, Accused Of Child Abuse, Charged In Murder Plot

[May 01, 2014]  By Laila Kearney

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) — A San Francisco-area boys golf coach who was arrested late last year on suspicion of molesting three of his underage students is now facing charges of plotting to kill his accusers from jail, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

Andrew Nisbet, 32, is accused of writing letters detailing the plot and meeting with an undercover prosecutor who posed as a hit man while Nisbet was in the Santa Rita Jail in the San Francisco suburb of Dublin.

The Alameda County District Attorney's Office charged Nisbet on Tuesday with three counts of solicitation of murder, district attorney spokeswoman Teresa Drenick said in an email.

A once-celebrated golf instructor, Nisbet faces 75 additional felony charges, including oral copulation with a minor and lewd acts on a child.

He was arrested in December after being accused of molesting boys between the ages of 12 and 17 from 2009 to 2012 who were in his junior golf program in Livermore, an affluent city of about 80,000 on the eastern tip of the San Francisco Bay Area.

The letters Nisbet is accused of writing from jail to a confidential informant asked to have the "victims taken care of" and agreed on a price for each of the targets, the district attorney's office inspector's report said.

Nisbet also met with a district attorney's office inspector who posed as a hit man and discussed the cities in which his former students lived, confirmed at least one of their names and offered to give the inspector money to "prove he was serious," the report said.

"It appears through Nisbet's letters to and from the confidential informant as well as his conversation with the undercover (officer) he is serious about having the victims killed in exchange for money," the report said.

Nisbet, who pleaded not guilty to the molestation charges in February and was set to begin trial late last month, is scheduled to appear in Alameda County Superior Court in June to enter a plea for the solicitation of murder charges, Drenick said.

Nisbet's attorney Timothy Rien was not immediately available for comment on Wednesday.

(Editing by Cynthia Johnston)

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