A state appeals court says a former central Wisconsin girls' basketball coach should get a new trial on a charge of using a computer device to facilitate a sex crime. The Third District Appellate Court in Wausau threw out a jury conviction yesterday against 58-year-old Rory McKellips. He was charged after a girls' player at Athens High School told police he had sexual contact with her in 2011 at his Mosinee home. A Marathon County jury found McKellips innocent of sexual assault and exposure, but convicted him of using a computer for a sex crime. He was later sentenced to ten years in prison. McKellips denied the girl's sexual assault allegations in his trial testimony, but admitted buying a pre-paid cellphone for the girl to use. The appellate court said the trial judge should have not asked jurors to determine whether the flip-phone was a legal computer device. Instead, the court said Judge Mike Moran should have asked jurors whether the alleged uses of the flip-phone constituted communications through a computerized system.
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