Court documents detail sexual misconduct allegations against a baseball coach involving students at a Pittsfield, Massachusetts high school. A warning to listeners that this story contains details some listeners will find disturbing.
The state’s case against Scott Nimons, 36, identifies two victims and three distinct charges: two counts of “obscene matter to minor,” one of “child in nude, lascivious pose/exhibit,” and one of “trafficking of person under 18 for sexual servitude.” The date of offense for the charges is listed as June 13, 2020.
Nimons was arraigned in Central Berkshire District Court on Thursday. Neither he nor his attorney immediately responded to request for comment by WAMC.
In the documents, Pittsfield Police Department Detective Timothy Koenig explains that the “obscene matter to minor” charges relate to Nimons sending obscene matter to the two victims. The “child in nude, lascivious pose/exhibit” charge is connected to Nimons’ “soliciting or enticing” nude pictures of one of the victims, and the “trafficking of person under 18 for sexual servitude” relates to Nimons offering alcohol and marijuana to the minors in exchange for explicit images.
Evidence related to the case includes surveillance video, phone data and SnapChat records.
Police reports say Nimons, who was identified as a JV baseball coach at Taconic High School in 2019 in the report, reached out to one student at the school over SnapChat this spring to hang out at his house. The student – who first informed Taconic staff of the incident on June 9th – says she told him she was a student before going to his home to smoke marijuana without anything physical occurring between the two. After that, the unnamed student says Nimons began sending her explicit videos and images over SnapChat and iMessage, of which the student claims to possess a screenshot, offering her alcohol and drugs to return her own. The student also allegedly possesses one communication of Nimons telling her to not tell anyone about the exchanges. The report contains allegations from the parent of the victim’s friend that sexual interactions had occurred, and says that there is video evidence corroborating those claims consisting of Nimons dropping off the victim at her parents’ house. The video submitted did not confirm Nimons’ identity, but did corroborate claims that he drove a white truck – claims that were later confirmed when police did an RMV check on Nimons. The first alleged victim initially withdrew from participating in the investigation, but later returned to police to continue.
The second alleged victim spoke to authorities in early July, identifying Nimons as the person sending her inappropriate messages and images, saying that she understood he was doing this to other girls as well. She said the fact that other students followed Nimons on social media had initially lowered her guard in interacting with him. Allegedly, Nimons told her that he had seen her at the school and at baseball practices and that he was attracted to her. She reports telling him that the interactions were inappropriate given their age difference – she has a brother his age – and that Nimons responded there “was a first time for new things.” She says his sexually explicit messages specifically identified her age as part of his attraction, and that she responded only in an effort to make him stop. Her report says that Nimons visited her at her workplace offering her a ride home repeatedly – a claim supported by video surveillance from the workplace – and at one point sent her an image of him at the bottom of her street, saying he could pick her up.
Phone data collected by police from Verizon Wireless found sexual messages from Nimons to the victim, as well as multiple references to their age difference. A video allegedly from Nimons’ SnapChat account shows a faceless white male masturbating.
The conditions of Nimons’ pretrial release include orders to stay 300 yards away from Taconic High School, and both the homes and workplaces of the two victims. It also requires him to not contact anyone under the age of 18 directly, indirectly, electronically or over social media.
“The fact that we have somebody who was an adult in a trusted position that is doing this is very, very, very, very concerning and what we really want to make sure is that young people in our community who are brave enough to come forward know that there are adults that will stand behind them and that we take this kind of behavior seriously. It is a crime and we will prosecute it aggressively," said Berkshire County District Attorney Andrea Harrington. “There could potentially be other victims and we very much would like for any other people in our community who have been victimized by Mr. Nimons to contact the Pittsfield Police Department.”
The Pittsfield Public Schools released a statement Friday saying that Nimons was not employed by the city at the time of the alleged incidents, and that he was never a full-time employee at Taconic.
