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AUBURN — Former DeKalb High School teacher and coach Scott Coffing will serve the maximum sentence for sending computer images of himself performing sexual acts while nude to a teenage girl in DeKalb County.
In a hearing Wednesday morning, DeKalb Superior Court I Judge Kevin Wallace sentenced Coffing to three years in the DeKalb County Jail for disseminating matter harmful to minors, a Class D felony.
Coffing will serve his sentence consecutively with a jail sentence in Steuben County. He also must pay a $1 fine and $164 in court costs.
Wallace said that with the combined sentences from Steuben and DeKalb counties, Coffing must serve 1,730 days, which began on March 2, 2008, when he was imprisoned after his DeKalb offense.
Coffing will receive credit for jail time he already has served, but his attorney disagreed with a presentence report about the correct number of days.
Coffing, 35, pled guilty to the charge July 1. Two charges of invasion of privacy, both Class A misdemeanors, were dismissed as part of a plea agreement.
On March 1, 2008, Coffing, who was 34 at the time, communicated with a girl, who was then 16, through an online chat program. The girl was in her home in DeKalb County when Coffing, who was at home in Rochester, used the Internet to send a video of himself engaging in a sex act. When he sent the video, the parents of the victim already had a court-issued protective order that banned Coffing from contacting the girl.
In March 2007, Coffing received a two-year sentence, with one year suspended, in Steuben Circuit Court for child seduction involving a different girl. He received an additional year of confinement on March 3, 2008, for violating the terms of his probation by meeting his victim from the 2007 conviction.
Coffing resigned as a social studies teacher and assistant basketball coach at DeKalb High School in June 2006, after school officials found out about his alleged misconduct with the first victim.
Wednesday, Coffing told the judge he wanted to apologize to the victim and her family “for problems I’ve caused in their lives due to my disrespect.” He added that he has “learned a lot” and is ready to accept his punishment and “be successful when I get out.”
Coffing’s attorney, Robert Hardy, argued that Coffing should serve only two years in jail. He said Coffing’s offenses occurred during two years when his judgment was “very impaired.”
“I think that these crimes, all concentrated in a two-year time period, are not indicitive of who Scott Coffing is,” Hardy said. He added that Coffing already had been punished significantly, including serving jail time and changing careers.
But deputy prosecutor Erik Weber said Coffing’s actions caused hardship, stress and heartache for the victim and her family. He recommended a sentence of more than two years.
“I do not know if the defendent in this case has learned his lesson,” Weber said. “I hope he has.”
Wallace read aloud from portions of a 23-page transcript of the online conversation between Coffing and his second victim on Feb. 29 and March 1, 2008. During the conversation, Coffing wrote about numerous sexual acts he wished to engage in with the victim. He then sent the video of himself performing a sex act in the nude.
Wallace also read aloud from letters written by the victim’s parents. Her father wrote that Coffing “has twisted my daughter to the point that I don’t know when, if ever, we can get back to normal. … He is a sick man with evil intentions for young girls.”
The victim’s mother wrote, “Basically, her entire high school experience has been wrapped up in this drama, and I fear her future has been altered. … She was robbed of a normal high school boyfriend experience, and you never get to re-experience your first love, do you?”
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