A former volleyball coach at Como Park High School in St. Paul has been charged with sexually assaulting one of his players multiple times on school property and elsewhere over a nearly one-year span up until last month.

Keng Cha of St. Paul was charged Friday in Ramsey County District Court with one count each of first- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct in connection with the encounters.

Cha, who turns 30 on Tuesday, appeared in court Monday and remains jailed in lieu of $80,000 bail. Court records do not yet list an attorney for him.

According to the criminal complaint:

Police went to the high school early Thursday afternoon and met with a 15-year-old girl who said she and Cha, her B-squad volleyball coach, had sex four times from October 2022 to September, at various locations including in the school's back parking lot.

She said the intercourse always occurred in his vehicle either behind the school or one time in October 2022, when he picked her up at her house and drove to a spot near a lake.

As officers were speaking to the girl in the school office area, Cha was with the athletic director in the school being fired and at the same time texting her, "Why haven't you been coming to games?" and "Did you say anything to anyone about us?" Officers located Cha and arrested him.

Cha told police that his relationship with the girl progressed to him sexually assaulting her anywhere from two to four times including in December in Battle Creek Park in St. Paul and the last time in his car near her house.

School district spokeswoman Erica Wacker said Monday that Cha began coaching volleyball at Como Park in August 2022 until Sept. 28, the date referenced in the complaint when he was fired. Wacker said Cha had no other duties with the district.