A Mayfair resident and former youth soccer coach was sentenced on Monday to serve 12–1/2 to 25 years in prison for having sex with a 16-year-old girl and soliciting naked photos from several other teens.
Vincent Mickle, 35, of the 3200 block of Teesdale St., used social media Web sites including Facebook and MySpace to introduce himself to teenage girls, many of them high school athletes, authorities said. Many of the girls accepted his “friend” requests and exchanged text messages with him.
Mickle, a former Lighthouse Soccer Club coach, invited the teens to his home and gave them alcohol and marijuana, authorities said. Some of the teens sent naked pictures of themselves to Mickle upon his request and one engaged in sexual intercourse with him.
Authorities began investigating Mickle in early 2010 after he showed up to watch one of his victims in a field hockey game. The teen was alarmed, authorities said, and told officials at her school how Mickle had earlier contacted her via the Internet.
Detectives from the police department’s special victims unit identified five additional victims. They arrested Mickle in March 2010 and found hundreds of pornographic images on his personal computer, many of which depicted children under 10 years old.
Mickle pleaded guilty last June to statutory sexual assault, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, unlawful contact with a minor, corrupting a minor and numerous counts of possessing child pornography.
He has been classified as a sexually violent predator and will have to report as a sexual offender upon his release from prison. Mickle was not accused of using his former volunteer coaching position with the Lighthouse Soccer Club to commit crimes. ••
