Former Ohio State diving coach William Bohonyi has pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual battery. Bohonyi could face up to 10 years in prison for having sexual encounters with an underage diver.
WBNS reports that Bohonyi’s guilty plea came as part of a plea deal. He’ll have to register as a Tier 3 sex offender in the state of Ohio and could face up to a decade in prison.
Ohio State University fired Bohonyi, then an assistant diving coach, in 2014 for violating the school’s policy on sexual harassment, WBNS reports. USA Diving permanently banned him in 2015. He’s one of five diving coaches to appear in the U.S. Center for SafeSport’s banned database. His listed ban reason is “sexual misconduct.”
Bohonyi is also the defendant in a civil lawsuit filed by one of his victims. The suit aims at Bohonyi, USA Diving and the Ohio State University Diving Club. The plaintiff in that suit is Eszter Pryor, who has come forward publicly to talk about abuse at the hand of Bohonyi. Pryor told her story on the TODAY show last summer, saying Bohonyi started a sexual relationship with her when she was 16 and he was 27. You can see that full interview here.
As part of the plea deal, one count of pandering sexually oriented material involving a minor that carried up to 8 years and one count if sexual battery were dismissed. Plea deals like this are common in these cases. Prosecutors typically want to give defendants incentive to plea, and they want to spare the victims from further trauma by having to testify. If a defendant is admitting guilt, they also want to give them appropriate consideration for that, as opposed to when a defendant wants to contest the charges.
These are the parts of the sexual battery statute that apply to this case:
2907.03 Sexual battery.
(A) No person shall engage in sexual conduct with another, not the spouse… Read more »
Interesting that Will was in the same Indiana University Swim and Dive class as Nick Walkotten. Nick’s in prison for a similar offense.