May 5, 2021 4:45p
(WGTD)---A man who was associated with a high school wrestling program in Racine a number of years ago has been accused of taking nude photographs of team members and having sexual contact with two of them.
60-year-old Bennie Velasquez spent time with the Horlick High School wrestling team between 2008 and 2012 as a volunteer coach who also wrestled with students.
A former member of the team, now 28, stepped forward after Velasquez was charged earlier this year in connection with another incident. The former wrestler told of how Velasquez, on a regular basis, would grab the genitals of players and video record them coming out of the shower. The former player said he complained to an assistant coach, but that nothing changed.
That coach, identified in the complaint only as “L-V”, was placed on administrative leave as soon as the man’s story came out last month.
A second former player is quoted in the complaint as telling a similar story. He said he was traumatized by his time on the team.
The first player also relayed two alleged episodes of sexual contact that purportedly occurred while he was traveling in a van with the team, and then again while he’d been with the defendant either at the defendant’s home or at the home of “L-V”.
The complaint says nude images of 16 students taken in the locker room at Horlick were recovered in a search recently of the defendant’s home.
In court Wednesday, Velasquez’ bond was raised from $10,000 to $25,000. The earlier charges stem from online exchanges that Velasquez had with an adult who’d been posing as a juvenile. Charges of child enticement and "use of a computer to facilitate a child sex crime" were filed in connection with that case.
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