FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) – Dustan Mohr, a former Major League Baseball player, will spend nine years in an Indiana prison after pleading guilty in March to three sex crimes against a 13-year-old girl.
Mohr, 47, shed tears Friday at the defense table in Allen Superior Court; he stood up and apologized to the court and to the victim — now 15 — and her family. Mohr was the girl’s softball coach when the crimes occurred. The 15-year sentence was partially suspended.
His attorney, Greg Miller, said Mohr was still trying to figure out what led him to target the 13-year-old for sexual favors during the time he is accused of demonizing her family, destroying her father’s standing in the baseball community and ruining her confidence.
Superior Court Judge Fran Gull sentenced Mohr to five years for each Felony 5 offense – child solicitation for sexual intercourse, child seduction and sexual misconduct with a minor. He will serve three years in prison for each count, consecutively, and spend the rest of the time on adult probation, Gull said.
The father, who will not be named in this article, spoke to the court describing how Mohr blocked parental controls on the victim’s phone, but her father was lucky enough to locate his daughter and rescue her from rape as her 14th birthday approached, he said.
The victim’s father said the coaching facility was described as a safe place for children. “This was not a safe place,” the father said.
After listening to Miller speak of Mohr’s counseling and treatment after he was caught and arrested, her father said his daughter was also seeing a doctor. “He (Mohr) shifted and covered his tracks,” the father said.
The father said Mohr was spreading lies about him, telling the victim her father was an awful person and that he was mentally and emotionally abusive. The family asked for the maximum sentence of 18 years. A Felony 5 sentence can range between one and six years.
A hefty sentence “would give my daughter a chance to breathe again,” he said. The victim suffered “the loss of her innocence by a 50-year-old who knew what he was doing,” the father said.
In a soft voice, the victim told Judge Gull of her isolation and depression because of the abuse.
Deputy prosecutor Tracy Heltz Noetzel and Detective Corporal Nicholas Kiefer said the guilty plea came this March, just weeks away from a trial. Mohr is facing another sexual misconduct with a minor charge for the same case in DeKalb County. His hearing is scheduled for Monday.
Mohr was charged in August 2023 for events dating back to May 2023 and before. Although the family did not want to speak publicly, they stayed in the courtroom to watch the man they described as a “monster” stand to be cuffed and taken away to the Allen County Jail.
According to court documents, Mohr had been hired to provide softball lessons for a 13-year-old at Strike Zone Training Center in Fort Wayne.
The two had been training at the center for at least six months when the victim’s father discovered the girl at Mohr’s home. The girl would tell investigators in multiple interviews Mohr had touched her in a sexual manner during training sessions and the two had exchanged private digital images, according to court documents.
She also told investigators Mohr touched her in a sexual manner while the two were inside his vehicle at times, court documents said. Court documents also show Mohr gave the minor a separate phone so they could communicate.
A Mississippi native, Mohr was drafted by the then-California Angels in 1994 and had stints with Minnesota, San Francisco, Colorado, and Boston during a seven-year Major League career.
Mohr came to Fort Wayne in 2009 because the mother of his two daughters was from there, he told Nexstar’s WANE in 2021. During that high school baseball season, he served as a first base coach for Northrop High School in a volunteer capacity.
His time as coach at the school ended after that season.
