Alleged molestation victim, 12, testifies

Kim Smith

Friday, March 23, 2001 | 10:59 a.m.

Jurors who must decide the fate of a former youth league coach featured in Sports Illustrated after his arrest on dozens of sexual assault charges on Thursday heard from one boy who was allegedly victimized for months.

Garen Pearson, 42, faces 39 counts of sexual assault and lewdness with a minor, all of which carry a life sentence.

The charges stem as far back as 1994 and involve seven children, four of them youth league baseball players.

Pearson's defense attorneys say Pearson, a long-time Las Vegas resident, regrets what has happened but contends the boys were willing participants.

Twenty-four of the counts pertain to a 12-year-old seventh grader who testified Thursday, the second day of the trial, and whose story led to Pearson's arrest in April 1999 and the discovery of the other alleged victims.

The boy told jurors he met Pearson while playing summer baseball in 1998 and accepted Pearson's invitation to play in a winter league. Because the boy's mom was bedridden with health problems and his father was working, he often rode to practice with Pearson.

Pearson would sometimes surprise him by calling unscheduled practices, and it was on these occasions they would often play "the quarter game" -- a "Truth or Dare" type of game.

According to testimony, if three out of five quarters landed on the same side the player was required to ask sex-related questions. If four or five of the quarters matched, the player had to dare another player or players to perform a sex act.

He and other boys played golf with Pearson, the boy testified. On these occasions they were required to expose themselves for a specific period of time, depending upon how many putts they missed or how many shots it took to make a particular hole.

The boy testified that the first time anything happened Pearson had taken him and another child to a pizza parlor. They played a modified version of the quarter game in the restaurant and, after dropping the other boy off, Pearson promised him a watch if he would perform sex acts on him.

The boy said he tried to get up but Pearson held him down, pushed his pants down and said that it was OK, he had done it to other people and, "This is what I do."

The acts continued for several months, sometimes with other boys, the child said. He didn't say anything to his parents or authorities because Pearson threatened him.

"I thought if he did something like this, what else would he be willing to do?" the boy asked rhetorically.

At one point, the boy said he brought Pearson a "Truth or Dare" book from school that didn't have any "nasty" dares in it. Pearson said he didn't want to play that way.

On the night of his 11th birthday the boy said he couldn't sleep and that he had an upset stomach. He ended up trying to sleep on the floor of his parents' bedroom but couldn't stop crying.

"I just couldn't, like, deal with it anymore," the boy said.

He told his parents what happened and, when they called another child and that child's parents, the boy said he told the other boy "to just come forward and it's for the best."

The trial is expected to continue before District Judge Michael Cherry on Monday.