Stephen Coronel (born March 21, 1951) is an American guitarist and former member of the rock band

Wicked Lester Wicked Lester was a rock band based in New York City. Two notable members were bassist Gene Klein and rhythm guitarist Stanley Eisen. Originally formed in 1970 as Rainbow, the band changed its name to Wicked Lester in 1971 to avoid confusion with ...

. He co-wrote a handful of songs that would later be recorded by the group Kiss, a band which featured former Wicked Lester members Paul Stanley and

Gene Simmons Gene Simmons (born Chaim Witz; he, חיים ויץ, ; born August 25, 1949) is an Israeli-American musician. Also known by his stage persona The Demon, he is the bassist and co-lead singer of Kiss, the hard rock band he co-founded with Paul ...

. In 2014, Coronel was charged with possessing child pornography, and has been incarcerated at Kershaw Correctional Institution in South Carolina since 2016.

Musical career

A veteran of several New York City-area bands such as The Long Island Sounds, Bullfrog Bheer (with

), Tree (with Paul Stanley), Cathedral, Coffee, and Rainbow (unrelated to the Ritchie Blackmore band of the same name), Coronel introduced Stanley to Gene Simmons at his Washington Heights apartment in the early 1970s. The trio would go on to form Wicked Lester, which later morphed into Kiss when Simmons and Stanley decided to move in a new musical direction. Not involved in the formation of Kiss, Coronel formed the band Lover. While still a member of Wicked Lester in the early 1970s, Coronel created the riff and chord structures of future Kiss songs "

She She most commonly refers to: *She (pronoun), the third person singular, feminine, nominative case pronoun in modern English. She or S.H.E. may also refer to: Literature and films *'' She: A History of Adventure'', an 1887 novel by H. Rider Hagga ...

" and "

Goin' Blind "Goin' Blind" is a ballad by American hard rock band Kiss (band), Kiss, written by Gene Simmons and Stephen Coronel; it is sometimes referred to as "Going Blind". The song originally appeared on the band's second album, 1974 in music, 1974's '' ...

" with Simmons.

Sexual exploitation conviction

Coronel was arrested on September 26, 2014, and charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. A U.S. Department of Justice Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigation determined that child pornography had been uploaded from a residence in

Bluffton, South Carolina Bluffton is a town in southern Beaufort County, South Carolina, Beaufort County, South Carolina, United States. The population as of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census was 27,716, an increase of over 120% since 2010, making it one of the fa ...

. Coronel was sentenced to six years in prison on April 27, 2016, after being found guilty of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor. As of April 2018, he was incarcerated at the Kershaw Correctional Institution in South Carolina. Coronel was released from prison, placed on probation March 3, 2019, and transferred to South Carolina's Beaufort County Detention Center, where he is choosing to stay while awaiting approval to move to Florida.

References

External links

Legendary Rock Interviews interview with Steve Coronel by John ParksKiss army Spain interview with Steve Coronel by Javier Rueda and Fernando Martínez
Kiss (band) personnel Living people American rock guitarists American male guitarists 1951 births 20th-century American guitarists People from Manhattan People from Bluffton, Ohio American people convicted of child pornography offenses Guitarists from Ohio {{US-rock-guitarist-stub