Former coach gets one year for attempted sexual battery
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The defendant, Mark DiChristina, 40, entered a best-interest plea Thursday morning before Circuit Court Judge Bart Stanley to reduced charges of attempted aggravated sexual battery. He will be required to serve one year in jail and spend the remaining part of his 10-year sentence on supervised probation.
DiChristina will be allowed to amass good time credits, meaning he will likely get out after serving about nine months of his sentence. However, he will not be allowed to serve as a jail trustee.
He will also be on life-time supervision when he is released and be listed with the state sexual offender registry which keeps track of convicted sex offenders. He must also pay a $2,000 fine.
The charges were lodged when a female family member reported being inappropriately touched by DiChristina on two occasions in November and December of 2001. However, she did not report the incidents until a few years later.
The charges were leveled as DiChristina and his wife were going through a nasty divorce. His defense maintains other circumstances surround this case other than the actual charges.
The charges come after DiChristina enjoyed a long volunteer career, coaching both boys and girls basketball, beginning in 1985. He coached AAU leagues and Jaycee leagues.
While some of his teams involved girls who were roughly the same age of the family member he allegedly molested, lawmen have found no evidence he molested or attempted to molest girls on his teams.
In addition to his work with youth sports, DiChristina is perhaps best known for his accomplishments in cooking as, just before his arrest, he was declared the best cook in Warren County two years in a row during the annual contest at the Warren County A&L Fair.