Second Osceola youth softball coach charged with child molestation
On the same day as the listed head coach and president of OC Crush softball league was sentenced to prison for statutory rape, court documents show a second coach with the Osceola-based youth travel league was charged with multiple sex crimes against a minor.
Bradley Mathis, 47, was charged with eight felony counts of child molesting on Friday. He is alleged to have molested a 9-year-old girl on numerous occasions, including taking nude videos of the child, over the course of four years.
The girl's mother notified police of the alleged molestation in late July, according to court documents. The girl talked with detectives in early August, and Mathis was questioned and arrested on Aug. 31, according to the document.
Court documents state Mathis is "a close family member of [the girl] as well as her softball coach."
Mathis lives in Warsaw, per court documents, though he is listed as a coach on a social media page for the OC 12U FastPitch Softball team and is in team photos.
The new charges against Mathis come on the heels of another league coach, Michael Feltz, being convicted of sex crimes against children. Indiana business records list Feltz as the president and treasurer of OC Crush Fastpitch Corp., a nonprofit youth softball league registered in eastern Mishawaka.
Both Feltz and Mathis were charged with molesting players they coached through the softball league. In Feltz's case, court documents stated he committed statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl and molested her for around five months before the girl's parents alerted law enforcement. Feltz pleaded guilty to child molestation in August and was sentenced last week to 30 years in prison.
When Feltz was first charged in April, a reporter seeking comment from the OC Crush League called a number listed on the team's social media page and a man named "Brad" answered the phone, but refused to answer questions about Feltz.
Second Osceola coach charged:President of OC Crush softball league sentenced on child molestation conviction
A call left at the same number Wednesday was not answered.
Mathis is accused of multiple felonies, so it is unclear how many years in prison he faces if convicted, though Indiana sentencing guidelines state the sentence for one count of child molesting as a Level 1 Felony is 20 to 40 years.
Sex crimes investigation
As a "close family member," Mathis had been molesting the girl since 2018, court documents say. In March, the girl's mother alerted Mishawaka police that her daughter had been sexually abused by Mathis and the case was forward to the county's Special Victims Unit.
In her interview with investigators, the girl said the alleged abuse by Mathis began when she was 9-year-olds with him showing her pornography on his phone. Court documents say Mathis groped and molested the girl in various ways over the next three years. Mathis allegedly gave names to his and the girl's genitals so he could talk about them in code, documents say.
A review of the girl's phone also showed multiple texts of a "very explicit sexual nature" between Mathis and the girl, and a sexually explicit video of the child, which was allegedly sent to Mathis at his request.
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Second Osceola youth softball coach accused of sex crimes
