Famed New York City hoops coach Bob Oliva pleaded guilty Monday to raping a 14-year-old boy during a trip to Boston in the 1970s, as the victim's lawyer announced a $20 million lawsuit against him.
Oliva, who won 549 games during his legendary three-decade career at Christ the King High School in Queens, was placed on probation for five years for the rape of Jimmy Carlino, who gave a powerful, tear-filled victim impact statement during a court hearing in Boston.
During Carlino's statement, the 66-year-old Oliva looked on stone-faced.
Oliva, who now resides in Myrtle Beach, S.C., was also ordered to wear a GPS tracking device, is barred from coaching, must not be around children under the age of 18 without supervision and also must register as a sex offender.
Oliva had faced the possibility of life in prison if convicted at trial of two counts of child rape, and one count of disseminating pornography, which he pleaded guilty to Monday.
Afterward, former Yankees and Mets' pitcher Allen Watson, who is a graduate of Christ the King, told reporters that when he was a boy Oliva had shown him pornographic material, masturbated while watching porn with Watson and took him to prostitutes so that Oliva could watch Watson having sex.
Watson, 40, testified in 2010 before the Boston grand jury that indicted Oliva in the Carlino case.
The crimes against Carlino occurred over two days in the summer of 1976 when Oliva took the then 14-year-old Carlino from New York to Boston to see the Yankees play the Red Sox in a double-header at Fenway Park.
Oliva's guilty plea ended years of denial and efforts by his backers to smear Carlino as a money-hungry liar.
But Carlino and his lawyer said Oliva molested him more than 100 times over a four-year period in the 1970s.
Oliva resigned in 2009 from Christ the King under the threat of indictment in Boston, which he claimed was causing him health problems.
After the court hearing Carlino's lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, handed to reporters copies of a $20 million lawsuit that has been filed against Oliva, the Diocese of Brooklyn, Christ the King and other defendants in New York.
