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	Ex-Coach Pleads Guilty to Abusing Girl Chicago Breaking News October 17, 2008 http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/10/ex-coach-pleads-guilty-to-abusing-girl.html John Puga, a former youth basketball coach at a Downers Grove church, pleaded guilty today to sexually abusing a 17-year-old girl and was sentenced to a year in the DuPage County Jail work release program. He was the third official at that church to be convicted of a sex crime. Puga, 36, of Aurora, also was placed on four years of sex offender probation and has to register with his local police department as a sex offender. Puga was a coach at Marquette Manor Baptist Church and school in Downers Grove when he had an improper relationship with the girl -- a church member and student -- from November 2001 to May 2002. Assistant State's Atty. Alex McGimpsey said that Puga pleaded guilty to a specific incident of abuse that occurred in the school after a basketball game. No charges were filed until 2005 after the victim told a counselor, who passed the information to church officials, who contacted Downers Grove police. A former youth minister of the church, Edward E. Greene, 38, of Asheboro, N.C., pleaded guilty earlier this year to criminal sexual assault of a female student in 1997 and 1998 and was sentenced to four years in prison. A third church official, Frank Stima, 64, of Washington, a former deacon, pleaded guilty in 2006 to criminal sexual abuse of an underage female and was sentenced to two years of probation. The age of consent in Illinois is 17, unless the defendant is in a position of trust, such as a teacher or coach, and then the age of consent is 18. Puga, who now works in the communications installation industry, is to begin his year of work release on Jan. 5, 2009.
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