NJ Gymnastics Coach Sexually Assaulted His Athletes, Jury Rules

FREEHOLD, NJ — A former youth gymnastics coach from Ocean County has been convicted of sexually assaulting two of the athletes he was coached when they were children, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said Thursday.

Sasha C. Raught, 58, of the Whiting section of Manchester Township, was convicted Wednesday of one count of first-degree aggravated sexual assault and two counts of second-degree sexual assault following a two-week jury trial held before Monmouth County Superior Court Judge Jill G. O'Malley, the prosecutor's office said.

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Raught was a coach at Shrewsbury Gymnastics from the early to mid-1990s and later at Jonas Gymnastics Academy in Marlboro, the prosecutor's office said.

Raught was arrested in 2023 after investigators learned he had assaulted his former athletes when they were each teenagers. The first happened when he worked at Shrewsbury Gymnastics, and the second happened in 2008 while he was at Jonas Gymnastics Academy, the prosecutor's office said.

He was released to await trial over the objections of the prosecutor's office. Raught was indicted on the charges in September 2024.

The original charges included a third victim. It was unclear what happened with those charges.

Raught is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, Dec. 11, the prosecutor's office said.