Star Athletes Are Indicted in Bank Robbery

THOUSAND OAKS —  A star Newbury Park soccer player and her championship wrestler boyfriend were indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of robbing a Westlake Village bank.

Tabetha Garibay booted a soccer ball as the star forward for teams at Newbury Park High and Pepperdine University. Todd Hoult once wrestled for Agoura High School and Moorpark College.

And according to a U.S. grand jury indictment filed Wednesday in Los Angeles, they robbed the Coast Federal Bank in Westlake Village on Dec. 14.

Hoult, 23, was the gunman and Garibay, 20, drove the getaway car, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Andre Birotte Jr. Now, he said, the young couple face up to 20 years in prison--Hoult could be sentenced to 25--if convicted on federal bank robbery charges.

Hoult is no stranger to the law, authorities said. He was already on probation for the 1992 burglary of a Thousand Oaks home when sheriff’s deputies arrested him Jan. 10 in the robbery, said Ventura County Sheriff’s Senior Deputy Chuck Buttell.

But Garibay’s indictment on Wednesday mystified her former coach.

For an aggressive soccer star who anchored numerous Newbury Park High victories and longed only to graduate from college, the coach said, such a crime seems totally out of character.

“It sounds like she got caught up in the wrong place at the wrong time, because Tabetha’s not the type of person who’d be involved in such activities,” said Donna Doman, girls soccer coach at Newbury Park High. “I think it’s very unfortunate that somebody led her astray.”

As streets teemed with Christmas shoppers Dec. 14, the sturdy young man and his pretty, frosted-blond girlfriend drove up to Coast Federal Bank in Westlake Village in a gold 1984 Corvette, Birotte said.

Hoult hopped out with a semiautomatic pistol--his face cloaked in a black ski mask, hooded sweatshirt and sunglasses--and ran inside, Birotte said. Garibay waited behind.

Hoult ordered two or three bank employees and possibly a customer to the floor, then vaulted the counter and ordered two tellers to put up their hands, according to Birotte and the indictment.

Witnesses said Hoult fled the bank with $8,925 and hopped back into the Corvette, which drove off down an alley behind Westlake Medical Center, according to Birotte.

Less than 90 minutes later, police and FBI agents found the car abandoned in a Thousand Oaks shopping plaza. Inside, Birotte said, they found a pair of plane tickets to North Carolina, where Hoult’s parents live.

On Dec. 18, Birotte said, an unidentified friend apparently wired some of the bank robbery proceeds to Hoult in Las Vegas, which he picked up using the name Todd Preston.

Hoult has been held in Ventura County Jail since his Jan. 10 arrest. FBI agents planned to arrest Garibay on Wednesday.

“The motive for the robbery right now is unknown,” Birotte said. “I just don’t know what caused their actions.”