Ex-Worthington Christian coach, accused of having sex with students, found dead

WBNS 10TV

(5-2-24) Former Worthington Christian Head girls basketball coach, Jason Dawson (35) accused of having sex with two female students on his team has been found dead…after being release on bail this past Friday.

Dawson was charged in April with 10 counts of sexual battery in Franklin County Common Pleas Court. this week a criminal complaint was filed in U.S. District Court against Dawson, accusing him of sexual exploitation of a minor and distribution or possession of child pornography.

Columbus Police officers were called to a home on reports of a shooting and one person was found dead with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The Franklin Coroner’s Office confirmed that the person found dead has been identified as Dawson, it has been ruled that is was a suicide…by a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

This past season in Huntersville NC at Christ The King Catholic HS he was coaching the girls team.

Huntersville basketball coach accused of having sex with students in Ohio

WCNC

In December 2023, a woman was interviewed by a Columbus Division of Police detective and claimed that she had been in a relationship with Dawson during her sophomore year in 2019 through September 2023.

She also told the detective that the relationship became sexual in January 2021 when she was 16 years old and that the pair had sex about 100 times.

Dawson coached Worthington Christian between 2019 and 2022, he left the school to pursue other career opportunities in Charlotte, North Carolina. School officials said Dawson, who had graduated from the school in 2006, that he was also employed as a teacher at the time of the incidents.

In 2022, Dawson was named by the Columbus Dispatch as the All-Metro Girls Basketball Coach of the Year for leading Worthington Christian to the Division III state championship game.