FBI Special Agent Wendy Osborne confirmed Cox was arrested Thursday afternoon and charged with one count of coercion and enticement, charges that could carry a prison sentence of a minimum of 10 years.
This was Cox’s third season as the Park Tudor basketball head coach. He was hired in 2009 to be an assistant coach and the assistant athletic director. IU senior guard Yogi Ferrell played for Cox from 2009 to 2012.
Cox was also a teacher and taught the victim during the fall semester.
The family released a statement Thursday night thanking local and federal law enforcement officials.
They also said they want to make sure this never happens again.
“Cox’s depravity is shocking,” the family said in the statement. “We are just thankful that we discovered his actions when we did. As our family moves forward, we will work with the school to make sure that this never happens again at Park Tudor.”
A Park Tudor spokesperson released a statement saying the school reported this to the Department of Child Services within 24 hours of learning about the relationship.
The school learned of a relationship when the father of a 15-year-old girl came to the school Dec. 14, 2015, with hard copies of images he found on his daughter’s phone. The images showed male and female genitalia, according to court documents obtained by the Indianapolis Star.
The victim’s father provided the school with his computer overnight and received it back the next day, but never received the hard copies. The father said in the court documents he was under the impression the school would report the situation.
The school filed a report with the Department of Child Services, but did not mention any images or video.
That day, Cox resigned. But court documents say Cox was fired and signed a confidentiality agreement.
The agreement stated Cox was prohibited from having any contact with any Park Tudor students.
A week later, Park Tudor filed a second report, this time discussing explicit images and video of Cox and the victim, court documents show.
A meeting was arranged by DCS between the victim’s family and Detective Laura Smith of the Indianapolis Metro Police Department on Jan. 4 to discuss what happened.
The next day, Smith went to the school to talk with the official who filed the report to DCS. She was redirected to the school’s attorney, who told Smith she could not reveal anything because it was privileged information.
On Jan. 7, Smith obtained warrants for Cox’s home and Park Tudor. The officers first went to the Cox’s home, where they obtained his cellphone.
They then went to Park Tudor, where the school’s attorney soon arrived. It was revealed he had hard copies and files from the father’s computer. The images showed a minor engaged in sexual conduct.
Both law enforcement and DCS had no knowledge the attorney had done this, or that the father had brought these materials to the school.
Upon obtaining these images from the attorney’s office, officials were able to confirm the number used to text the victim matched the number in Cox’s personnel file.
The communication between Cox and the victim began through text message in September. The victim said in court documents she did not know how Cox obtained her phone number.
The victim said she at first felt uneasy about the text messages with Cox, but that they mainly talked about basketball, chemistry and school.
The first request of a sexual nature was made Oct. 7, 2015. There is no evidence the victim sent anything to Cox because the images and videos were sent through Snapchat, but Cox responded with a text message he received it and liked certain parts of her body.
Cox’s username on Snapchat is “bigsilkysmooth.”
On Oct. 19, 2015, Cox texted the victim, “If we were alone all night and we had done everything but sex would you want it before I left?”
The first time Cox explicitly mentioned the two meeting was Oct. 22, 2015, when he suggested she spend the night of Dec. 19, 2015, at his house. His wife and children would be out of town, he said.
Park Tudor had a road basketball game that day. The plan was for the victim to tell her parents she was sleeping at a friend’s house that night and then sneak into Cox’s car after the game.
She said in the court documents she was planning on having sex that night.
The father first found explicit photos and messages on his daughter’s phone Nov. 28, 2015. That same day, Cox and the victim talked about their plan to meet and he asked her for photos. The father did not see messages about the plans, as the victim said she often deleted content from her phone.
He did find images showing both female and male genitalia through a conversation with someone labeled “CKC.” The victim said the photos were of two minors and the father deleted the images and began to check his daughter’s phone regularly.
The father found explicit content on the victim’s phone again Dec. 12, 2015. When the father confronted the victim, she admitted the conversation was with Cox.
The father took screenshots of the messages detailing requests for inappropriate images and actions, and plans to meet at Cox’s house. The screenshots were provided to the school by the father.
After Cox was asked to attend a meeting with school administrators, the victim told him what her father had found on her phone. Cox told her to make sure he didn’t go to jail.
He told her to lie and say she fabricated the interaction.
After he was fired by Park Tudor, his contact with other students did not stop, court documents showed.
Cox texted a male student Dec. 16, 2015, saying everyone from Park Tudor was supporting him and he was confident he could find another job anywhere in the state and discussed various coaching jobs with the student.
He said, “I’ve positioned myself to be marketable.”
Later that day he texted the student, in reference to the victim, “I would turn my head if you messed her up.”
