NCAA referee pleads guilty to molesting teenage boy
Here’s another horrific child abuse case involving NCAA athletics.
First, there was the huge scandal and cover-up at Penn State, where Jerry Sandusky, assistant and top lieutenant to legendary football coach Joe Paterno, ran a youth football camp that was little more than a cover story for getting young boys in one place where Sandusky could molest them.
The Penn State football program ended up with a slap on the wrist, and all was pretty well forgotten once the Nittany Lions had Saquon Barkley scampering around the backfield and propelling himself to the New York Giants on NFL draft day.
Then came the horrendous case of former Michigan State physician Larry Nassar, who used his status as doctor for the U.S. gymnastics team to prey on dozens of young women and children.
Now a veteran NCAA referee has pleaded guilty to molesting a 14-year-old boy.
At least this time it didn’t involve using resources of one of the governing body’s member schools; this one appears to be a lone wolf satisfying his sickening proclivities on his own.
The Marietta Daily Journal, a paper in suburban Atlanta, reports that Wesley Tyronne Dean, a 58-year-old who for 15 years has made his living officiating women’s basketball at the collegiate level, pleaded guilty Friday to one count of child molestation.
Cobb County Superior Court Judge Kimberly Childs was in no mood for wrist slapping, throwing the book at Dean by giving him 20 years; 15 of those will be served in prison and the remaining five, when Dean is well into his 70s, served on probation.
Back in the fall of 2016, Dean made contact with a 14-year-old boy and began a relationship of sorts with the kid.
Case of NCAA referee facing child molestation charges moves forward https://t.co/RN5JC3KU5b pic.twitter.com/no1M9c0DE3
— Cobb County News (@CobbNewsNow) May 14, 2017
According to the boy’s mother, who discovered messages on her son’s phone, Dean was doing what they call “grooming” in law enforcement; he bought the child gifts, lavished attention and affection on him, and finally, once he had gained the boy’s trust, he cashed in his chips and changed a young life forever for the worse.
It happened on Oct. 28, 2016, at a Marriott hotel in the Galleria area, where security cameras caught Dean and the boy together en route to his room.
Cobb County District Attorney spokeswoman Kim Isaza said Dean, faced with the evidence, gave a full confession to authorities.
A menace to society is behind bars where he will occupy the lowest rung on the prison social totem pole.
Meanwhile, now the NCAA has to deal with the fallout as well; questions are going to be asked about whether it is doing enough to vet the character of its officials, and nobody’s going to want to give the organization the benefit of the doubt.
One can only hope that this leads to college athletics taking the lead in abuse prevention and rooting out sex offenders before they ascend to the level of a Jerry Sandusky or a Larry Nassar.
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