Acushnet hockey coach charged in Florida with soliciting teenage boys for sex

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Anthony 'Tony' DeSilva of Acushnet is charged with using a computer in an attempt to seduce two teens in Florida.Mike Valeri / Standard-Times file photo

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An Acushnet man who coached a generation of junior hockey league players is charged with soliciting sex online from what he thought were two 16-year-old boys and sending naked photos of himself to one of them, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Department in Florida.

Anthony "Tony" DeSilva, 41, of 23 Fairfield St., a highly successful coach of the Massachusetts Maple Leafs junior team, is charged with 10 counts of use of a computer to seduce a child and one count of transmission of material harmful to a child, according to Carrie Eleazer, public information officer for the Polk County Sheriff's Department.

DeSilva has been involved with the Maple Leafs, a team of players 20 years of age and younger, as coach and general manager since 1997 and also coached the Middleboro Bolts Babe Ruth baseball team of the Cranberry League.

He told police he works the midnight shift at a group home for the mentally challenged owned by Community Resources for Justice, but that could not be confirmed Thursday night.

Eleazer said DeSilva also told police he knew the two boys he was chatting with online were 16 years old.

DeSilva was arrested at his Acushnet home at about 4 p.m. Wednesday by Massachusetts State Police, along with Acushnet police and two sheriff's deputies from Polk County, according to Gregg Miliote, a spokesman for the Bristol County District Attorney's Office.

The suspect waived rendition when he was arraigned as a fugitive from justice late Thursday afternoon in New Bedford District Court, Miliote said.

Miliote said DeSilva has no criminal record in Massachusetts.

DeSilva was being held overnight at the Bristol County House of Correction in Dartmouth on Thursday and was scheduled to be transported Friday to Polk County by sheriff's deputies to face charges there.

An affidavit from the sheriff's department said police began their investigation earlier this year when one victim's mother complained that she believed DeSilva was soliciting her son through Facebook.

Detectives obtained the mother's permission to pose as her son and to continue conversing with DeSilva online.

DeSilva sent naked images of himself to what he thought was the boy and, in graphic detail in online and text conversations, described what he wanted to do sexually, Eleazer said.

At about the same time, DeSilva began soliciting another Polk County teen and undercover detectives asked for and received permission to pose as that boy online, Eleazer said. Detectives posing as the two different 16-year-old boys had conversations with DeSilva, and he solicited both young men to perform sex acts and to send him nude photos.

Reaction from his former players ranged from surprise to disbelief.

"This was a bombshell. It's definitely a shock, I will say," said Quirino doCanto, 33, of Wareham, who played for the Middleboro Bolts Babe Ruth team of the Cranberry League under DeSilva.

"I've known Tony since I was 15. He coached me when I was 15 on one of my all-star teams," he said.

DoCanto was with a Babe Ruth team that went to Cooperstown, N.Y., and took more recent trips with DeSilva's teams, including a five-day trip to New Jersey.

"I've never witnessed anything out of the ordinary," he said. "Not at all. I've been out on several occasions with Tony and never seen anything out of the ordinary."

Andrew Medeiros, 22, of Acushnet, who played under DeSilva in 2005-07, also was surprised by his former coach's arrest.

"I've known Tony for years, since I was little," he said. "I've never personally noticed anything of that sort."

Eleazer said a search of DeSilva's home was conducted and additional charges may be brought.

According to the Massachusetts Maple Leafs' website, DeSilva is the coach of the junior team and general manager of the organization. He has been involved with the Maple Leafs organization since its inception in 1997-98 and his teams have collected more than 600 victories, seven league championships and seven Junior National Championship appearances, which resulted in three championships, the website said.

DeSilva also was an assistant coach at Bishop Stang High School, Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical Regional High School and Fairhaven High School in the 1980s and early '90s, the website said.

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