Mississippi HS Basketball Trainer Accused of Molesting Minor Girl On Team In Hotel Room

Your Black World reports:

Can we trust our children anyone these days?

Mark Chatman, a trainer with the Natchez High School girls' basketball team (Lady Bulldogs) in Natchez, Mississippi has been arrested for molesting a young girl when the team traveled to Magee, Mississippi to play in a tournament.

The 45-year-old was chaperoning the group of teen girls when for reasons as yet to be determined, they ended up in his hotel room. According to the girl's aunt, after the other girls left, her niece was left in the room with only Chatman and one other male who was in the bathroom when the alleged molestation occurred. Girls on the team told the coach, who told the school, who then reported it to police.

Sources, who have asked to remain anonymous, reveal exclusively to Your Black World that the trainer and the student may have been involved in an inappropriate relationship prior to the incident.

Long-time coach, Sue Johnson, was the one who called the girl's aunt, who is her legal guardian, and told her that her niece had been molested. The aunt, who spoke to the local news with her face blurred out, says that her niece is now afraid to even walk down the street alone because she's so afraid of what might happen to her.

Chatman faces one count of sexual battery after turning himself into Natchez police. 

"I just want to see him punished for what he did to her, because for the rest of her life she has to live with what he did to her... she's afraid that someone else that she trusts will do this to her again."

When asked whether or not Chatman was still employed at Natchez High School, the interim superintendent Natchez-Adams School District, Joyce Johnson, refused to comment on the situation, telling WJTV that "the district cannot comment because it it a personnel matter."