A former soccer coach from Mayfair last week pleaded guilty to several child-molestation and child pornography charges. Vincent Mickle, 34, will be sentenced Sept. 19.
He’s been imprisoned since his arrest in March 2010 on charges he used social networking sites on the Internet to try to lure teenage girls into sexual relationships. Assistant District Attorney Michael Stackow said Mickle did have sex with one of the girls, a 16-year-old, in 2009.
Stackow told Common Pleas Court Judge Harold Kane on June 7 that Mickle used the Internet to make contact with the girls, and, on some occasions asked them to send him nude photos of themselves. Some did. Mickle sent one girl a photo of his penis.
The assistant district attorney also said Mickle gave some underage girls alcohol, and he gave marijuana to one girl.
Before accepting his guilty pleas, Kane asked the Teesdale Street resident his education level and if he understood the charges against him. Mickle told the judge he understood the charges. He said he has an associate’s degree and had been continuing his studies at Holy Family University.
Several charges of possession of child pornography were added to Mickle’s case in October. After his arrest in 2010, Mickle’s computer was examined and several pornographic images of minors were found, police said.
Besides pleading guilty to solicitation to commit statutory sexual assault and to commit involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor, and corrupting the morals of a minor, Mickle pleaded guilty to 15 counts of possessing child pornography.
“If he were sentenced to the maximum period of time for each charge, he could face a sentence of 165 years to 330 years,” Assistant District Attorney Gwenn Cujdik told the Northeast Times.
After last week’s hearing, Mickle’s attorney, Michael Patrick Parkinson, said that, after looking at the evidence assembled by the district attorney’s office, he felt it was in his client’s best interest to plead guilty.
Mickle had lots of legal contact with youngsters because he had been a coach for the Lighthouse Soccer Club, but at the time of his arrest last year, police stressed all charges against Mickle stemmed from his use of the Internet and not from his coaching activities. ••
