Girl's Former Tennis Coach SentencedFor Soliciting Her For Child Pornography

KANSAS CITY, KAN. - A Missouri man who coached youth tennis has been sentenced to 78 months in federal prison for soliciting a minor girl he coached to send him sexually explicit photos of herself, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said today. The defendant also was ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution.

Rex Haultain, 56, Parkville, Mo., pleaded guilty to one count of soliciting child pornography. In his plea, he admitted that in 2009 he told a minor girl he was coaching that she sexually aroused him. While traveling to a tournament in the summer of 2010, he showed her a picture of his penis on a cell phone. In the fall of 2010 he began asking her to send him photos of herself naked, leading eventually to his sexually molesting her.

At sentencing, the victim, now 18, read a statement saying Haultain manipulated her by exploiting her desire to become an outstanding tennis player. Her statement read in part: “Not a day goes by that I don’t think about what happened to me. I believe that will be the case for a long time, and maybe even for the rest of my life.”

Grissom commended the Overland Park Police Department, the FBI, Victim-Witness Specialist Vivian VanVleet and Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Rask for their work on the case.