14-07-2025
Basketball coach tells teen to beg parents not to report sex abuse, FL cops say
For over a year, a basketball coach sexually abused a teenager he was hired to train until her parents discovered what was happening, Florida authorities said.
A jury convicted 49-year-old Roosevelt Overstreet III of several child sex offenses, including two counts of sexual activity with a minor, and a judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison, according to the State Attorney's Office for the Fifth Judicial Circuit.
McClatchy News reached out to Overstreet's attorney for comment July 14, but he was on vacation.
In the past, Overstreet has received praise for his basketball-focused nonprofit aiming to develop kids' athleticism and leadership skills. One Ocala city official called him a 'positive influence' for youth.
Overstreet received a $2,700 check from the Ocala Police Department for his nonprofit in 2022, during the same timeframe when he was accused of abusing the teen girl, records show.
Overstreet began training the 16-year-old in August 2021 to help her recover from ACL surgery, according to an arrest affidavit from the Ocala Police Department.
She was a senior in high school when her parents discovered Overstreet had been seeing her outside of their training sessions, police said.
She told investigators Overstreet groped her in his office at the training facility once, and she asked him what he was doing, according to police. Later, she began going to his house, where she said most of the sex acts took place over the course of the next 13 months, according to police.
She said Overstreet told her to keep it secret before she turned 18, so he didn't get in trouble, according to officers.
At the police station, she called Overstreet in the presence of investigators and said her mom found their messages and videos and knew he had engaged in sex acts with her when she was 16 and 17, according to the arrest affidavit.
Overstreet told her that she was supposed to delete everything, and she needed to 'beg' her parents not to report him, police said.
Investigators said they found explicit videos of Overstreet, as well as videos of sex acts with the two of them recorded when the girl was 17.
When officers brought Overstreet in, he said he had sent the teen videos of himself when she was 17, but he told her they 'needed to wait until she was 18 years old to begin an intimate relationship,' according to the affidavit.
He later told investigators that he did engage in sex acts with the teen but said he thought she was over 18 at the time, police said.
In addition to the charges of sexual activity with a minor, Overstreet was convicted of two counts of promoting sexual performance by a child, two counts of possession of child pornography, and three counts of transmission of material harmful to a minor by an electronic device.
Ocala is about an 80-mile drive northwest from Orlando.
