Ex-coach pleads guilty to sexual abuse
PITTSBURGH — A former gymnastics coach from Clinton Township pleaded guilty Monday in Allegheny County to three counts related to sexual abuse against minors in exchange for a lesser sentence, and is scheduled to appear Wednesday in Butler County to face related crimes there.
Keith R. Callen, 48, of Sarver pleaded guilty before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jill Rangos to one count each of aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault by a sports official, unlawful contact and corruption of minors. In exchange for Callen’s plea, the district attorney’s office agreed to a sentence of two to four years in state prison, five years of probation and a lifetime registration as a sex offender.
A separate trial for Callen is scheduled to begin with jury selection at 9 a.m. Wednesday in the courtroom of Judge William Shaffer.
Callen had originally been found guilty in Allegheny County in March 2017 of sexually abusing three girls and was sentenced to 13 to 26 years in prison. His convictions were later reversed by the state Superior Court because he was tried in Allegheny County instead of Butler County, where some of his crimes were alleged to have been committed.
Callen was originally tried at once for two separate groups of charges in Allegheny County, but the state’s Superior Court threw out the convictions last fall because only one of the relevant crimes was said to take place in Allegheny County. In its decision, the court said that because prosecutors handled both cases at once in Allegheny County, they denied Callen his constitutional right to a trial “by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.”
The court’s November 2018 decision ordered both cases remanded back to a lower court for new trials, and vacated the previous findings.
Callen’s crimes against two of the victims allegedly spanned from either 1998 or 2000 through 2002, but Callen “did not begin to groom” the third victim until 2010, according to court documents.
Callen was charged by state police in April 2016 for molesting a girl from age 14 to 17 while he was her private coach. Police said the assaults happened at three different training facilities in Allegheny and Butler counties. State police filed more charges in July of that same year when two sisters came forward and alleged Callen molested them in 2001, when they were 6 or 7.
