Former Ohio high school girls’ basketball coach, accused of having sex with students, found dead
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A former Ohio girls basketball coach accused of having sex with two female students has been found dead.
Columbus Police officers were called to a home on reports of a shooting and one person was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to our news partner WBNS in Columbus.
The Franklin Coroner’s Office confirmed that the person found dead has been identified as Jason Dawson, 35.
News Center 7 previously reported that Dawson was arrested in North Carolina and extradited to Columbus after he was accused of having sex with two of the students on his team.
The alleged actions started when he was the head coach for the girls’ basketball team at Worthington Christian High School.
In December 2023, a woman was interviewed by a Columbus Division of Police detective. She claimed to have been in a relationship with Dawson from her sophomore year in 2019 through September 2023.
She also told the detective that the relationship became sexual in January 2021 when she was 16 years old and that the pair had sex about 100 times.
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The woman said Dawson, who was also a teacher at the school, recorded them having sex multiple times. He would then send the videos to her.
Three of the videos were able to be extracted from her phone by the Columbus Digital Forensics Unit. Two of the videos showed the woman and Dawson having sex when she was 17 years old.
WBNS reported on Wednesday that Dawson has since been accused of associating himself with a different girl who was also on the basketball team. He allegedly had sex with that girl in November 2020 when she was 16 years old.
Dawson was out of jail after posting bond on Friday.
