Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Cheerleading Coach Admits To Sex With High School Wrestlers While Husband Watched

Starting point is 00:00:00 Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. A former high school cheerleading coach admits to having sex with four teenage boys that her husband coached in wrestling. So what does Michael Page-Huck's guilty plea mean for her ex-husband, who's also accused of sex crimes involving students? Welcome to Crime Fix. I'm Anjanette Levy. Paige Huck was a substitute teacher and

Starting point is 00:00:31 cheerleading coach at the Gallia County School District in Southeast Ohio for years. She was actually banned from the school grounds back in 2019. Her husband, Matt Huck, was a wrestling coach and agriculture teacher up until the last school year. The Hucks are accused of using their access to students at Gallia County schools to prey upon young boys and girls so they could have sex with them. If that wasn't disturbing enough, some school officials in Gallia County are accused in a federal civil lawsuit of knowing about the abuse for years and doing nothing about it. I'll detail

Starting point is 00:01:05 the allegations made against the Hucks in that civil suit in a bit, including the claim that they abused students together. Matt Huck faces three felony counts of complicity to allow unlawful sexual contact with a minor and one count of rape. Matt Huck is accused of sex crimes involving cheerleaders. He has pleaded not guilty to the crimes. But now Paige Huck, his ex-wife, is admitting to having sex with teenage boys. Huck has pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful sexual conduct with a minor and two counts of sexual battery. And she's agreeing to testify against her ex-husband, Matt Huck. I reached out to Matt Huck's lawyer for a comment about Paige Huck's guilty plea, and he responded very simply saying, no comment. Mark Weaver is the

Starting point is 00:01:52 special prosecutor handling this case. So Mark, tell me how you worked out this plea agreement with Paige Huck. Well, we brought her case first. We went to the grand jury and returned several indictments that showed that she would have been convicted if we had brought our case to trial of having sex with multiple wrestlers who were on her husband's wrestling team. And she was facing a very long her to prison for 10 years. 10 years is a significant amount of time. Are the victims satisfied with that? I assume they are since you've agreed to this plea deal. Yes.

Starting point is 00:02:43 In Ohio, victims have to be consulted before there's a plea agreement. And so, of course, I met with and discussed this with the victims. They support this. And now, as part of our plea bargain against Paige Huck, she has agreed to testify truthfully against her husband, Matthew Huck, who was the wrestling coach, these were his boys. These were his players who he was complicit, the evidence will show, in bringing them to her back to the bedroom where they had sex. And so she will now testify against him. Did Paige Huck say why her husband, who, I mean, they were both trusted to coach children, to be role models for children. When you're a teacher and a coach, you're supposed to, you basically take an oath to keep children safe. She's admitting we didn't do that. That's what she's saying. So did she say

Starting point is 00:03:38 why they were engaging in this? I mean, the husband's willing, according to her, to supply her with children to have sex with who were under his care since he was coaching them for wrestling. Everyone is entitled to the presumption of innocence, but at trial, we will show evidence that this was a sexual fantasy between the two of them that they would discuss it beforehand and after. And so he knew about this. Part of it, he was the one supposed to be protecting these young men. In some cases, they weren't even young men. One of the victims of Pagehawk was 13 years old. And so she's a cheerleading coach and a substitute teacher. He's a wrestling coach. They're both in positions of authority. We as parents expect the adults in our kids' lives to look out for them, to take care of them,

Starting point is 00:04:30 not to sexually prey on them. That's why this case has resonated so loudly in Southeast Ohio, where we brought it. Paige Huck has agreed to testify against her ex-husband. So what's the next step? You obviously are proceeding with his criminal case. As you mentioned, he enjoys the presumption of innocence as anybody does. He has pleaded not guilty. When I reached out to his lawyers the last time I covered this case, there was no comment. So tell me, what is the next step as far as his case is concerned? Well, she'll be sentenced on September 5th. So that's her case.

Starting point is 00:05:07 And she will be cooperating and testifying against his case. We're still working on a trial schedule for his case because we're exchanging information in the discovery process. We just had a meeting with his lawyer earlier this week. That's fine. That's part of the normal process. But we are ready to go to trial and to meet our burden. And now that the wife, school board, the Gallia County Board of Education swept this under the rug. I know that you've charged the Hucks with these offenses. Now Paige Huck has pleaded guilty and admitted her fault in this ordeal.

Starting point is 00:06:00 Is there any recourse criminally for the school board? Prosecutor David Kelly and I are the special prosecutors in this matter. And early on, we looked at that. The statute of limitations on anything involving any school official long ago ran. And so it was very apparent to us at the beginning that our role would not be looking at anything that happened in the school district, that our role would be looking directly at the people who were involved in the sex acts, which in this case is Paige Huck or her husband, now ex-husband, Matthew Huck, who was complicit in those sex acts. We also have a second, a third indictment, if you will, against Matthew Huck for first-degree felony rape for digitally penetrating a young girl at a sleepover that really has nothing to do with what

Starting point is 00:06:47 Paige was doing with the wrestlers. You said this was a sexual fantasy between both of them. That's incredibly disturbing because these are two people who were trusted to be authority figures, to coach young people. Paige was a substitute teacher. Matt was a teacher as well. I mean, they literally, it was like, you know, the fox in the hen house. That's what kind of situation this was, except it was worse than that. So that analogy maybe doesn't even fit here. But I'm just wondering to myself, is there any remorse that Paige Huck has shown at all? And if so, is it true remorse or is it remorse because, I'm sorry, I got caught? She hasn't spoken in trial yet.

Starting point is 00:07:36 Well, in court, there's not going to be a trial. She hasn't spoken in court about any remorse. She has said that to our investigators. I expected her sentencing. She will say something like that. We'll see what she says. Perhaps she'll cover it. But this is a reminder to all parents that most teachers and coaches are good people. But for the few who aren't, this is why parents have to be involved in their kids' activities. I've prosecuted numerous child sex cases, and most of them would have never happened

Starting point is 00:08:01 had a responsible parent been paying more attention to who's around their kids. And so the parents are not at fault. The fault is the criminals. But parents can be vigilant and look out for who's around their kids and give their kids permission to speak out when something like this is happening. Yeah, and just a reminder to parents, you've got to have these conversations young. Start it young and keep the communication open with your kids. You know, just talk to your kids all the time, every day. How's it going? Anything going on? You can tell me anything, no matter what. I have those conversations with my

Starting point is 00:08:37 son all of the time. You know, I'm thinking to myself, you know, these things don't often happen in a vacuum. Is there a concern that there could be other victims out there outside of the victims you've identified right now? We don't think so. The rape case that we brought against Matthew Huck, that came as a result of the publicity from when we indicted Pagehawk. And part of our release was, if anybody has any information, please come forward to the investigators. And a young woman did. And that's why we brought that felony rape charge against Matthew Huck. So we don't know of any other victims. There are plenty of them. And we talked to them. And of course, if another one came forward vis-a-vis Matthew Huck, we would be interested in talking about that. But for now, we think we have identified the victims.

Starting point is 00:09:27 Well, it's just a terribly sad case. It's just awful. And I hope that the victims are able to move past this and get the help that they need. Is there anything else you'd like to add, Mark? This has torn this small town apart. The Gallia County is a small rural community in southeastern Ohio. A lot of people were worried that nothing would ever come from this. A lot of people talked about this for years.

Starting point is 00:09:51 And so I wanted to remind them in our public statement after this plea hearing, which is the day of justice has come. Paige Huck has admitted that she violated the law and she will go to prison. Thank you, Mark. Thank you. When you have kids, making sure they're around people who are safe is priority number one, and the case of Paige Huck makes that very clear. Truthfinder.com is a website that can help you research the people that your children are around every day.

Starting point is 00:10:21 It will give you a lot of information about a person including past addresses criminal history traffic tickets all sorts of different kinds of records and information even relatives you can just put in a person's name and search them it will turn up all kinds of different results about the people that you search and what's really great about truthfinder.com it will give you the names of sex offenders in your neighborhood if you want to try Truthfinder.com. It will give you the names of sex offenders in your neighborhood. If you want to try Truthfinder.com, I have a great deal for you. You can get 50% off of confidential background reports. Just log on to www.truthfinder.com slash lccrimefix. Log on and start accessing information about almost anyone. Now to the allegations in that federal lawsuit, which go into more detail. The lawsuit

Starting point is 00:11:06 claims, in 2004, plaintiff Jane Doe One was sexually assaulted by Coach Huck. This abuse occurred when plaintiff was a 16-year-old high school cheerleader. The abuse took place with the assistance and knowledge of his then-wife, Paige Huck. The suit continues and outlines other allegations against Paige Huck. In 2016, Paige Huck sexually abused John Doe 1, a 17-year-old wrestler, and John Doe 2, a 15-year-old wrestler, sometimes together. The abuse of plaintiffs John Doe 1, John Doe 2, John Doe 3, John Doe 4, and John Doe 5, took place with the assistance and knowledge of Coach Huck. At all relevant periods of time, Coach Huck was an employee of the BOE, serving as both a teacher and wrestling coach at River Valley High School.

Starting point is 00:11:56 Paige Huck, also a Board of Education employee, served as a substitute teacher and cheerleading coach at RVHS, that's the high school. The suit claims some inappropriate things happened on out-of-town trips for wrestling matches. For instance, one allegation is that in January of 2003, Matthew and Paige Huck watched porn in a hotel room at a wrestling meet with wrestlers. Then later that year in November, the Hucks are accused of hosting a lock-in hosted where they played pornography for the wrestlers, cheerle that year in November, the Hucks are accused of hosting a lock-in hosted where they played pornography for the wrestlers, cheerleaders, and football players. The suit says Paige Huck engaged in sexual intercourse with numerous male students. Male students stood in

Starting point is 00:12:36 a line and took turns having sex with Paige Huck in the bedroom, while Coach Huck stood next to them and watched the sexual activity. Paige Huck having sex with students and Coach Huck watching all of this. Principal Jacobs simply said he would look into it when he learned of it. Now, after the cheerleaders made a report about this, the suit claims they were bullied and harassed. The report to Principal Jacobs is not even noted in the personnel files of Paige Huck or Coach Huck. The suit also outlines allegations made by Jane Doe One, where Coach Huck is accused of touching her under her pants. Jane Doe One continued to pretend to be asleep, but then got up from the encounter crying

Starting point is 00:13:18 and headed to the bathroom. The suit continues, Jane Doe One asked a friend to take her home. During the drive, the friend told Jane Doe 1 that the same type of assault happened to her at the hands of the Hucks. The suit includes other descriptions of sexual abuse involving wrestlers. The next morning, after John Doe 5 spent the night on the couch, Coach Huck told John Doe 5 that Paige Huck wanted to see him in the bedroom. When John Doe 5 arrived in the room, Paige Huck was laying on the bed 5 that Paige Huck wanted to see him in the bedroom. When John Doe 5 arrived in the room, Paige Huck was laying on the bed naked. Paige Huck initiated sex with John Doe 5. This

Starting point is 00:13:52 occurred with Coach Huck and other high school wrestlers present at the Huck home. John Doe 4 said Paige Huck started abusing him when he was 13. The first sexual contact with John Doe 4 occurred when Paige Huck stimulated the genitals of John Doe 4, then age 13, in the Huck's van on the way home from a wrestling meet held at another school. Coach Huck was driving the van and three other students were also in the van at the time. On more than one occasion, John Doe 4 saw Coach Huck watching him have sex with Paige Huck through the opening in the bedroom door. John Doe 3 was 17. The suit accuses Paige Huck of grooming him by using sexually explicit language at school

Starting point is 00:14:35 activities. Knowing that her sexual activity with John Doe 3 was wrong and would not be acceptable to anyone who found out, Paige Huck gave John Doe III $30 to $40 and instructed him to purchase a burner phone, which she could use to text him to avoid detection of their communications. This is all, of course, according to the lawsuit. And the suit claims that Paige Huck had sex with John Doe III between 50 and 60 times during his high school years. And it also accuses her of groping him at a friend's home, in Coach Huck's office, and the wrestling room at the high school, and in vehicles on the high school campus. Eventually, the suit claims Paige Huck's

Starting point is 00:15:15 conduct was addressed by school officials and she resigned. But the suit claims that didn't stop her behavior. She was eventually banned from school grounds in 2019, as I mentioned earlier. And now I want to turn to Craig Tuttle. He represents victims in that civil lawsuit that was filed in federal court. Craig, your reaction to Paige Huck pleading guilty and agreeing to testify against her husband? Well, thank you, first of all, Anjanette, for having me back. And our reaction is, quite simply, this is very good for our cases. It means three important things. Number one, it means that Paige Huck, who is a party to our cases, is now going to be a convicted felon as a party to the case.

Starting point is 00:15:58 It means that the school district now has to acknowledge that it employed a convicted felon, a sexual predator for many, many years. And it means that we're going to probably get very good evidence against her husband and potentially other individuals in the school district who knew what was going on and failed to step in and do the right thing. So I think this points towards very good things for our clients on top of the fact that it's obviously a relief and feels great for them to get a sense of justice here. While the agreed upon sentence may not be what everyone in the community was hoping would happen, the important thing here is the conviction for our clients and that Paige Huck is held

Starting point is 00:16:39 accountable. You have a federal civil lawsuit, so're you're pursuing damages Paige Huck doesn't appear to me to be somebody who is going to be able to write your clients a check but she will be held accountable she's admitting to basically sexually abusing sexually battering your clients or at least some of them and now Mattuck, she's going to testify against him. We don't know what the future of his case holds. He may decide to plead out. He may plead guilty to charges. He may take this to trial. He's innocent until proven guilty. So what does this mean for your civil case? Do you expect the district to potentially settle the case now? I don't know that this is a linchpin in their decision point as far as whether to settle

Starting point is 00:17:31 the case or not. Frankly, the school district's been aware of these claims for over two years, and here we are. We find ourselves in federal court, we find ourselves early in discovery, and we have a lot more that we intend to learn. But what we've learned so far certainly would inspire many defendants to come to the table and talk about the case because as we learn more, it's not getting any better for them. And this indication that Paige Huck is going to testify against Matthew Huck is just more evidence that the people within the district knew or should

Starting point is 00:18:06 have known what was going on. Matthew Huck was an employee of that district until we filed our lawsuit. So much longer than his wife was he a mandatory reporter working in the school district aware of the abuse of students and he sat there silently. So we think that this is certainly going to push things in our direction in this case. And we look forward to continuing to dig in and figure out how many more people knew more information about this and yet remain silent. Because that's really what our case is about. It's not about Matthew Huck. It's not about Paige Huck. It's about the individuals who knew or should have known what they were up to and allowed it to keep going for so many years. And how are your clients doing? I mean, that's really one of

Starting point is 00:18:50 the most important things too. I mean, some of them are well into adulthood now, but how are they doing now that she has taken some responsibility and she's being held accountable. She's going to go to prison for 10 years eventually. So are they feeling vindicated and validated in some respect? Is this going to help them heal? Yeah, I think the unique thing is they're all handling it very differently. I mean, they're obviously individuals themselves and the way they're reacting to this bit of news is unique as to each of them. But I think globally, everyone is in agreement that this is justice. It's a measure of justice. It means something. It validates them coming forward and being brave enough to tell their story. It validates the truth of their story because obviously she's admitting to this. This is not just their version of events anymore. This is the truth. This is the truth of their story, because obviously she's admitting to this, that this is not just their version of events anymore.

Starting point is 00:19:47 This is the truth. This is the truth that she is readily agreeing to. And I think that it is a measure of healing, but I don't think that we're going to see complete healing and complete opportunity for growth until Matthew Huck is dealt with, because he was involved in all of these events and until the school is held responsible for what they failed to do to protect the children. But yes, this is a very important step for our clients. We will continue to follow it. Craig Tuttle, thank you so much. Thank you very much. Take care. The Gallia County School District had previously released a statement to the Columbus Dispatch saying the district was sickened by the allegations.

Starting point is 00:20:29 It reads, all children in our community have the right to be safe from predatory behavior. Gallia County families entrust us with the responsibility of educating and protecting their children, and the safety and well-being of our students is our highest priority. And that's it for this episode of Crime Fix. I'm Ann Janette Levy. Thanks so much for being with me. I'll see you back here next time.

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Cheerleading Coach Admits To Sex With High School Wrestlers While Husband Watched

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Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Cheerleading Coach Admits To Sex With High School Wrestlers While Husband Watched

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