Former Basketball Coach Admits Sending Sexually Explicit Photos to Students

ST. LOUIS - A former high school basketball coach on Monday admitted sending sexually explicit photos to students and engaging in sexually explicit conversations with them.

Lee Anthony Bogan Jr., 29, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Louis to one count of attempting to receive child pornography. He admitted using a social media application to contact high school students beginning in the spring of 2024. In these messages, Bogan expressed romantic and sexual interest in the students, seeking to gauge their responses. He also sent photos of his genitals, believing that the app would cause the messages to disappear shortly after they were received, his plea agreement says. Bogan, who worked at a St. Louis area high school and was known as "Coach Teejay," was unaware that the minors took screen shots of the explicit photos before they disappeared.

Bogan, of Jennings, is scheduled to be sentenced on May 6. The charge carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 20.

The Ladue Police Department and the St. Louis County Police Department investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Dianna Edwards is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.