A former high school swim coach and another woman in Kentucky were arrested last week in connection with a child pornography investigation.
Bradley Yeager, 35, a former swim coach and substitute teacher at Corbin High School and South Laurel High School, and 22-year-old Rachel Baker were taken into custody in Knox County.
Yeager was initially charged with one count of promoting human trafficking of a victim under 18 and 14 counts of promoting sexual performance by a minor under 18.
Baker was initially charged with two counts of promoting human trafficking of a human victim under 18 and four counts of promoting a sexual performance by a minor under 18.
Since their initial arrest, Kentucky State Police have added more charges, including promoting human trafficking.
According to WKYT, a former Corbin High School swimmer said that Yeager sent her inappropriate text and Snapchat messages and kissed her after dropping her off from a swim practice while she was a swimmer and Yeager was a coach at Corbin High School in 2013. At the time, Yeager was 22 and the swimmer was 15.
“I was like, oh, I got his attention, I got him to kiss me, I did this, like I felt proud of what I did, and then as I got older, I was more disgusted,” the swimmer said, according to WKYT.
In 2015, Yeager wasn’t asked to come back and coach. No reason was stated.
Police in Corbin told WKYT that they have opened an investigation into the swimmers’ claims.
“If I had done this when I was 15 years old, when I had all the texts right there and the snapchats right there, then he would probably not have had this opportunity to do this again, and so I feel like it’s time for people who have been victimized by him, it’s time for the victims to speak out,” the swimmer said, according to WKYT.
Lauren County Schools has suspended Yeager from employment pending the investigation’s outcome.
An investigation by the Kentucky State Police Internet Crimes Against Children Unit found that Baker took nude photos of herself and her toddler and sold them to Yeager for payments of $130 and $150.
This is sick, but you have to continue shining a light on it in hopes of making a difference.
It’s depressing and sickening every time I see these headlines. Just awful.
I literally had a coach whose own brother was banned from USA Swimming tell me he didn’t think swimming had a problem with this sort of thing…this was done while he was criticizing me for calling out problematic coaches in our LSC.
It’s depressing how these kinds of articles just keep coming.
What a sick predator. Lock him up.