PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - A man who once worked for a Massachusetts school system and coached a middle school girls’ basketball team has been sentenced to time served and probation for traveling to Rhode Island to have sex with someone he thought was a 15-year-old girl.
The Telegram & Gazette reports that 32-year-old Alexander Viola was sentenced last month to 10 years of probation.
Viola was arrested in Cranston in July 2016 where police say he planned to meet a 15-year-old girl he had been communicating with online and via text messages. The girl was actually an undercover officer.
At the time, he was an instructional technology information specialist at a Shrewsbury, Massachusetts middle school, where he was also assistant girls’ basketball coach.
In court filings, his attorneys blamed his behavior on a developmental disorder.
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