Case of NCAA referee facing child molestation charges moves forward
When the University of South Carolina became NCAA women’s basketball champions early last month, longtime referee Wesley Dean was spending his 57th day in Cobb County jail on child molestation charges.
Weeks later, a Cobb grand jury indicted him on two molestation charges and a count of enticing a child for indecent exposure, court records show.
As of Thursday afternoon, Dean remained in jail without bond.
Police accuse the 56-year-old Cartersville man of luring a 14-year-old boy to Atlanta Marriott Northwest at Galleria hotel in October and engaging in sexual activity.
Investigators found out about the alleged crime from the boy’s mother who showed police text messages between her son and Dean, according to a warrant.
He was arrested Feb. 5, but police have not commented as to why the arrest was three months after the alleged crime.
Dean was previously named a Naismith women's official of the year by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.
He worked NCAA Tournament games from 1994 through 2014, according to the Associated Press. He officiated games in the Big East, Atlantic 10 along with the American Athletic and Southern conferences this past season.
His next court date was not immediately available online.
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Ben Brasch is the reporter tasked with keeping Fulton County government accountable. The Florida native moved to Atlanta for a job with The AJC. If there's something important to you going on in Fulton, he wants to know about it. Help him better metro Atlanta by dropping a line, anonymously or otherwise.
