Ron Gorman was arrested in Marietta, Georgia on March 3 on a wide range of 513 total charges including rape of a child, statutory sexual assault and corruption of a minor. Photo / Facebook
A married ex-wrestling coach is facing over 500 charges in a sex abuse case where he is accused of raping at least two of his former male students as police fear there could be more victims.
Ron Gorman, 51, was arrested in Marietta, Georgia on March 3 on a wide range of 513 total charges including rape of a child, statutory sexual assault and corruption of a minor.
Authorities say he faces 261 charges for one alleged victim, who was between the ages of 10 and 15, and additional 252 charges for a second alleged victim who was between the ages of 10 to 13, according to court records, reports the Daily Mail.
Police say the allegations against Gorman date back to 2006 when he was a resident of East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania and worked as a youth wrestling coach.
Authorities in Pennsylvania began their investigation into Gorman in September after child sexual abuse allegations surfaced in Marietta, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Gorman, who moved to Georgia in 2009, was brought back to Pennsylvania after the two alleged victims from his wrestling program in the Poconos came forward weeks ago.
'The charges that have been lodged against Mr. Gorman speak for themselves. He is just not safe for the community,' Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Julieane Fry said.
Authorities say the two alleged victims are now both aged 20 and are from East Stroudsburg, as they were both 10 years old when the alleged abuse started, WNEP reported.
Court papers state that the alleged abuse of both boys occurred in several places, including hotels, Gorman's home in Monroe County and also out of state.
One of the alleged victims told police on March 27 that Gorman flew him to Georgia where he continued the abuse, according to a criminal complaint.
He told investigators that Gorman abused him for three years. Gorman allegedly sent him money in exchange for sexual videos via Snapchat and messaged him on Facebook telling him he 'loves him so much it hurts'.
The second alleged victim told authorities on February 15 that he 'had a poor home life' and was taken in by the Gorman family and 'made to feel a part of the family,' according to the criminal complaint.
'He stated that they would go out to dinner and that (Gorman) would also take him to a hotel,' Pennsylvania Trooper Brian Noll wrote in the complaint.
The alleged victim said the wrestling coach would sexually assault him at hotels, and that the first time it happened was allegedly when Gorman's children were sleeping nearby, according to the complaint.
The alleged abuse continued until the boy was aged 15, when he told Gorman 'he did not want to do it anymore,' Noll said.
The boy told police Gorman would still send sexually explicit messages to him on Facebook while his wife slept. But Noll said his wife was not around during the alleged sexual assaults.
Noll said Gorman was also concerned the alleged victim would go to the police.
Gorman's attorney said his client is innocent and that the charges are straining on the entire family, including Gorman's wife, who was at his arraignment.
'The indications are that this is a gentleman who was nothing but a fantastic role model for the vast majority of children for the last 30-plus years and the amount of digging that had to be done by the commonwealth to find two people to say something not of that nature or character is significant,' defense attorney Brett Riegel said.
Authorities in Monroe County believe there might be more victims.
'We would hope that they would come forward, but we understand and respect their privacy,' Fry said.
This is not the first time Gorman has been accused of inappropriate behavior with students.
Back in 2011, a mother in Cobb County, Georgia claims she reported Gorman to local authorities after finding messages between her son and Gorman, who at the time was a wrestling coach at Pope High School, WSB-TV reported.
'As I understand it, he was a parent whose son was on the team,' Cobb County Public Schools spokeswoman Donna Lowry said.
She added that Gorman was not employed by the district at the time of the allegations.
'I don't feel like the people that were in the positions down here to protect my child and look into this (did) as much as they could have or should have,' the mother, whose identity has been concealed to protect her son, told WSB-TV.
Cherokee County officials said they received a complaint in 2015 that Gorman solicited a child under the age of 16, sheriff's office spokesman Lt. Jay Baker told The AJC.
'Likely, there was no physical evidence in our case, and to have made an arrest, detectives would have needed a confession,' Baker said.
No charges were filed related to that case.
Gorman's most recent employment was being the director of wrestling at Life University in Marietta, but he was fired on February 20.
'Life University had no direct knowledge of any criminal investigation into Mr. Gorman and was not aware he would soon be charged or arrested,' school spokesman William Brooks said.
'The University never received complaints about Mr. Gorman regarding any incident occurring on our campus or involving any member of the Life community.'
Gorman's bond was set at $1million and he remains behind bars at the Monroe County Correctional Facility.