A community college coach and Gresham elementary school worker has been arrested after authorities say he solicited explicit material from a teenager he met at a basketball camp in southern Oregon last year.
Nathan Ezell Bowie, the
Mt. Hood Community College head men’s basketball coach and a Hall Elementary School educational assistant, was charged Friday with using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct and second-degree online sexual corruption of a child.
The Gresham-Barlow School District said in a
statement that Bowie had been put on administrative leave from Hall Elementary School, where he’s been a temporary educational assistant since October.
Jessica Roberts, an associate vice president at Mt. Hood Community College, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that Bowie has also been placed on
administrative leave from his coaching position. He’s been the head men’s basketball coach for the last three seasons and previously spent two seasons as an assistant coach, Roberts said.
Bowie, 35, of Portland started communicating with the teenager after meeting her while leading a Nov. 13 basketball camp at
Glide High School, according to a probable cause affidavit.
He has led
similar camps throughout
the state, according to the
Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. His
Instagram profile shows him training with WNBA and collegiate athletes.
Authorities said Bowie encouraged Glide student-athletes to follow him on Instagram and that he later commented on a post from one of the student-athletes and struck up a private conversation with her.
A Glide coach eventually discovered the “inappropriate” messages and alerted authorities in January, court records show.
Bowie solicited explicit videos and images from the girl, who was 16 at the time, and then messaged her to “delete (sic) em off here,” court documents say.
The teen told sheriff’s deputies that Bowie had asked whether she would meet him at an upcoming basketball game at Umpqua Community College to have sex with him in a team van, court records say.
The teen “only sent nude photographs and videos when Nate Bowie asked for them,” sheriff’s Detective Matt Racine wrote in an affidavit. “Bowie would later threaten (the teen) to send additional nude photographs and videos, or he would post previously sent photographs online.”
www.oregonlive.com
