Former Chelsea coach, bus driver sentenced for possession of child pornography - MLive.com

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CHELSEA, MI – A former Chelsea High School lacrosse coach and district bus driver is now a registered sex offender after police, investigating his alleged inappropriate behavior with students, found more than 600 pieces of child pornography.

Steven Michael Bauer, 30, was sentenced, Oct. 14, to five years probation after pleading no contest before Washtenaw County Trial Judge Archie Brown to two felony counts of possession of child pornography.

In pleading no contest to the two charges, an additional count of possession of child pornography was dismissed, as well as one count each of accosting a minor for immoral purposes and using a computer to commit a felony, records show.

The charges stem from a police investigation launched in September 2018 after several Chelsea High School students reported to school officials and police that Bauer was communicating with them inappropriately through the social media application Snapchat, according to a Chelsea Police Department report obtained by MLive/The Ann Arbor News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Students told police that Bauer, using Snapchat, would frequently chat with them about how often they masturbated and would ask for them to send him nude photos or photos of their genitals, the report states.

Bauer was immediately suspended from his school bus driving duties while police investigated, and he resigned a day after the school suspended him, records show.

Chelsea Athletic Director Brad Bush told police Bauer was a lacrosse coach at the high school in 2017, but was terminated when staff discovered he was texting players after previously being warned not to so as it was a violation of school policy, the police report shows.

There is no indication any of the texts sent while Bauer was a coach were sexual in nature, records show.

During the investigation, police spoke with several students who shared similar stories of Bauer during his time as a driver on “the cool bus” innocently chatting with them on Snapchat for a while before the chats became overtly sexual, the report states.

Police executed a search warrant on Bauer’s home where several laptops, a hard drive, his cell phone and other electronic storage devices were taken to be analyzed, records show.

In January 2020, investigators received a forensic report of Bauer’s devices showing that while it could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Bauer had sent child pornography to others, he did possess more than 600 images and videos of known child pornography, the report states.

The bulk of the images and videos were requested and downloaded through DropBox and Skype conversations with others exchanging in child pornography, the report indicates.

Felony charges were filed Feb. 25 with Bauer on June 25 waiving his preliminary examination sending the case to trial.

He pleaded no contest to the two possession charges on Sept. 2. In pleading no contest to the charges, he is required to register as a sex offender until 2035.

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Former Chelsea coach, bus driver sentenced for possession of child pornography - MLive.com
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