Prosecutors Say Livermore Golf Instructor Tried to Kill Teens He Is Accused of Molesting

A Livermore youth golf instructor charged with sexually molesting several of his students is now accused of trying to kill his alleged teenage victims from jail.

Prosecutors on Tuesday added a 76th charge -- "solicitation of murder" -- to the case of Andrew Nisbet, the 32-year-old golf instructor who was first arrested in December 2013 on 65 counts of molestation and sex acts allegedly dating back to 2010.

In a 20-page charging document, Alameda County Senior Deputy District Attorney James Meehan alleged that Nisbet arranged to hire a hitman to kill two students he is accused of molesting. The hitman turned out to be an undercover police inspector, who was sent in to investigate a tip sheriff's deputies received at Santa Rita Jail.

Nisbet's attorney, Timothy Rien, did not immediately return a phone call to NBC Bay Area on Wednesday morning. In February, Nisbet pleaded not guilty to 75 charges of sex crimes, oral copulation, child pornography, lewd acts in minors involving three boys. For years, he was a popular golf pro at the Las Positas Golf Course in Livermore.

According to a probable cause statement filed in court and reported by the Contra Costa Times,  Nisbet began exchanging letters with someone he thought he could hire to kill his victims, who were between the ages of 12 and 17 when the alleged sex crimes took place.

After the informant tipped off a sheriff's deputy at the jail, the deputy sent the letters to the Alameda County District Attorney's office on Feb. 25.

The letters contained information about the three boys and asked to have them "taken care of, which from my training and experience means he is asking to have the victims killed," according to the sworn statement from Inspector Jeff McCort. Eight days later, County Inspector Edward Mermudez visited Nisbet in jail while undercover, posing as a hitman.

The investigator told Nisbet "that he was a mechanic and could fix a car for him and made a pistol-shooting motion with his hand," according to the statement.

Nisbet mouthed the victims' names to the "hit man," and told him that one lived in Pleasanton and one attended college in Santa Barbara. He promised to pay upfront to show he was serious, according to the statement. Nisbet also suggested that the investigator take the victims' cellphones, so that their murders would appear like a robbery.

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