Ex-coach sentenced for soliciting girl for sex

HAMMOND, Ind. – A former girl’s basketball coach has been sentenced to more than 10 years in prison for using the Internet to find young girls for sex.\nMatthew Hensley, 25, of Valparaiso, was convicted in July by a federal jury of attempting to solicit sex from minors using the Internet. U.S. District Judge Philip Simon sentenced Hensley on Friday to 125 months in prison.\nSimon said he was troubled by Hensley’s use of multiple online identities while chatting with an undercover agent posing as a 13-year-old girl. One personality claimed to be a young teen encouraging the agent to have sex with older men.\n“That really is calculated,” Simon said. “It’s nefarious. And it’s a window into what was going on in your mind.”\nHensley was charged in August 2006 after police officers spotted him heading into a Valparaiso park where he had arranged a sexual rendezvous with an undercover agent posing as a 13-year-old girl. His case was one of more than two dozen cases uncovered by a sexual predator sting operation run by 26 federal, state, county and local police agencies.\nHensley had coached at Andrean High School in Merrillville and St. Paul Elementary School in Valparaiso.\nDuring Friday’s sentencing, defense attorney Alex Woloshansky said Hensley had engaged in a harmless exercise in sexual fantasy.\n“He engaged in what is commonly known as phone sex, over a computer,” Woloshansky said. “There has been no harm done to anybody in this case except to Matt himself.”\nBut Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Benson said the former coach decided to drive to an agreed-upon location to meet the agent for sex. He also pointed out Hensley’s use of multiple personalities, some of which were sexually explicit while others were more subdued.