FORMER GYMNASTICS COACH PLEADS GUILTY TO COERCION AND ENTICEMENT OF TWO 13-YEAR-OLD GIRLS

ST. LOUIS — A former gymnastics coach has pleaded guilty in federal court to coercion and enticement charges involving two 13-year-old girls in cases separated by nearly a decade.

Marco A. Zomphier, 32, pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to two counts of coercion and enticement of a minor, admitting that he engaged in unlawful sexual conduct involving the two victims after developing contact with them through youth gymnastics programs.

According to Zomphier’s plea agreement, he met the first victim in 2012, when she was 13 and participating in a YMCA dance and gymnastics program where Zomphier was a coach and member of the program.

The two began communicating through text messages as well as the ooVoo video-call application and Kik messaging platform. Federal prosecutors said Zomphier used those communications to praise the girl, flirt with her, and profess romantic feelings toward her.

At one point, Zomphier wrote to the child that he loved her and told her she was the only girl he wanted to become “Mrs. Zomphier.”

Zomphier eventually persuaded the victim to allow him into her home. According to the plea agreement, he molested her there and attempted to coerce her into having sexual intercourse with him, but was unsuccessful.

During another incident at the residence, Zomphier attempted to push the victim toward her bedroom. His abuse of the first victim ended around May 2013, according to federal prosecutors.

The second case began approximately eight years later.

In late 2021, another 13-year-old girl met Zomphier through a gymnastics program in Collinsville, Illinois, where he was working as a coach. The two began communicating through Snapchat.

According to the plea agreement, Zomphier’s communications with the second child became sexual in nature in January 2022.

Zomphier subsequently engaged in unlawful sexual activity with the girl in the parking lot of a store near her residence and at his home in Bethalto, Illinois.

The guilty plea establishes Zomphier’s criminal responsibility for the two federal counts. Unlike a pending charge or indictment, the conduct underlying the plea is no longer presented solely as an allegation because Zomphier formally admitted the offenses in federal court.

The cases also demonstrate how online communication platforms can become part of child-exploitation investigations when adults use private messaging services to establish relationships with minors, move conversations away from supervised environments, and escalate communications toward sexual conduct.

Federal child-exploitation investigations frequently rely on digital evidence that can include text messages, social-media records, account data, device contents, photographs, video, location information, and communications preserved by victims or recovered through search warrants.

The conduct admitted by Zomphier involved two different communication eras. The first victim communicated with him through text messaging, ooVoo, and Kik beginning in 2012. The second victim communicated with him through Snapchat beginning in 2021, illustrating how different platforms can serve the same underlying grooming and exploitation process across separate periods.

Zomphier is scheduled to be sentenced on December 2, 2026.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Missouri has announced that prosecutors will recommend a sentence of 25 years in federal prison.

That recommendation is not itself the sentence. The final punishment will be imposed by the federal court at Zomphier’s December 2 sentencing.

The investigation was conducted by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, St. Louis County Police Department, Bethalto Police Department, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Hayes is prosecuting the case.

The prosecution was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, the nationwide Department of Justice initiative established in May 2006 to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Project Safe Childhood coordinates federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children through the internet while also working to identify and rescue victims.

The program is led nationally by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

Zomphier now awaits his December sentencing after admitting in federal court that he used relationships established through youth gymnastics environments and subsequent electronic communications to sexually exploit two 13-year-old girls years apart.

🔥 NOW AVAILABLE! 🔥

‎👉 Eclipsera – Apple Music

Sponsored • TRJ Ads
Inquiries: contact@therealistjuggernaut.com

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE

AVAILABLE