Former high school basketball coach accused of sex with players indicted on 10 counts

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WSYX) — A former Worthington Christian High School girls' basketball coach accused of having sexual relationships with two players was indicted on 10 counts Wednesday.

Jason Dawson, 34, was arrested in North Carolina last month and extradited to Columbus just this week.

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An initial arraignment planned for him Monday didn’t happen as a result of the indictment for allegedly having sex dozens of times with two former players over a multi-year period. He’s now set to face a Franklin County Common Pleas Court judge on Friday.

Dawson was the girls' basketball coach at Worthington Christian from 2019 to 2022 when the school announced he was stepping down to work with NBA prospects in North Carolina, Worthington Christian Head of School Dr. Mike Hayes said in a written statement following Dawson’s arrest.

According to court documents, in December 2023, one of his former students who played for him at Worthington Christian told detectives she started a relationship with Dawson in 2019 and it became sexual in January 2021 when she was 16.

(Warning: This redacted indictment includes material that might be inappropriate to some readers. Discretion is advised.)

She claimed they had sex more than 100 times and that he would record videos of their encounters and send them to her.

CPD's forensics unit was able to extract at least three videos from her phone showing them having sex when she was 17.

Another former female student made allegations of having sex with Dawson approximately 70 times from 2020-2023. She was 16 years old at the time of some of those alleged encounters, according to court documents.

Dr. Hayes said school staff only learned about the allegations when Dawson was arrested.

“The behavior described in these reports is despicable, criminal, and against everything we stand for and teach,” he said. “That’s why we’re committed to providing our full cooperation with law enforcement to bring this former employee to justice.”

Dawson graduated from the school in 2006, and he returned as a teacher and coach in 2014, which Hayes said involved him passing FBI and Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation background checks. He resigned from his job in April 2022 after two disciplinary incidents that weren’t criminal in nature, but were clear violations of school policies, Hayes said.