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Former Aau Coach Sentenced to 180 Years for Sex Abuse, Child Porn Involving More Than 400 Boys

By Jason Owens
Yahoo Sports
May 3, 2019

https://sports.yahoo.com/former-aau-coach-sentenced-to-180-years-for-sex-abuse-child-porn-involving-more-than-400-boys-042234256.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5iaXNob3AtYWNjb3VudGFiaWxpdHkub3JnL0FidXNlVHJhY2tlci8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIY0xvNkiSfVPA54jZpjMI9cq_ajbtQxdwArJgOm-_JGLcif2Y3TKAalFd8KAy6JYbtLvwovdTY8BwVnNqqVK0_4W8NZ8un32v3VIX0nIAb2rA8IaT2xcYEkDV-1v6PpXHM8hCp9duQ4-wIMHR98vcms2Rlu1g9qx3dj83j2m9XU

A judge sentenced an influential AAU coach to 180 years in prison Thursday after he pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation charges involving more that 400 boys under his watch.

Former Iowa Barnstormers youth basketball coach Greg Stephen received the maximum sentence from U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams, who said that Stephen deserved to spend the rest of his life in prison.

“The harm the defendant caused to the children is incalculable and profound,” Williams said in a Cedar Rapids, Iowa court, per the Associated Press.

Stephen, 43, faced a minimum of 15 years in prison and saw his pleas for leniency unanswered.

Stephen was a powerful basketball coach

Williams surreptitiously amassed a video and image archive of 440 boys engaged in sexual acts and molested at least 15 more over a 20-year period. The boys he abused looked to him as a conduit to advance their basketball careers.

He worked with the top athletes in the state, many of whom went on to receive college basketball scholarships.

"He believed you held the keys to the basketball kingdom, a victim’s mother said in court. "My son trusted you and you destroyed that. ... How dare you use basketball for your selfish, despicable, disgusting, self-seeking motivation.”

Stephen posed as teenage girls to amass porn

Stephen obtained his porn collection posing as teenage girls online and coercing his players and their friends to share videos and images of themselves masturbating over the course of years, according to the Associated Press. He would send explicit images of the teenage girls he identified as in exchange.

He also used hidden cameras in bathrooms, hotels and in his home and disrobed players as they slept on road trips.

He had a hard drive filled with digital images organized by folders named for each boy, who ranged in age from 9 to 17. Stephen’s former brother-in-law discovered a device with some of the images while remodeling his home.

Stephen touched at least 15 boys

According to court testimony he touched boys at least 15 times during road trips between 1998 and 2018, sometimes as he shared a hotel bed with them.

Stephen is expected to appeal the conviction.

 

 

 

 

 




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