Cole Black

LOCK HAVEN — Clinton County Judge Michael F. Salisbury did not mince words when he revoked the parole and imposed a new sentence that will keep a former high school music teacher and soccer coach in jail at least until late this year.

“Nothing you did was a mistake,” Salisbury told Cole Gregory Black, 30, of Montoursville, on Monday.

The new sentence runs until Dec. 15, 2023, but the judge made him eligible for parole again this Dec. 26 if he has no infractions while in the jail and staff gives him a favorable recommendation.

Black has been detained since July 6 for violating his parole by viewing pornography, drinking beer and being around minor children without approval of his probation officer.

“I deeply regret my actions,” he said in telling the judge he has learned his lesson. Salisbury did not buy it.

He recalled Black saying at his 2020 sentencing his actions were atypical and that no judge would ever see him in criminal court again.

Salisbury pointed out Black, when paroled, was given a list of rules that included a prohibition on viewing pornography, consuming alcoholic beverages and being around minor children without supervision.

“For a reason I don’t exactly grasp, you don’t comprehend these rules apply to you,” he said. “Everything you did was intentional.”

The most disturbing, the judge said, was watching pornography on his cell phone. “I find that reprehensible,” he said.

Black claimed his counselor Towsend Velkoff told him watching pornography was fine.

Velkoff acknowledged telling Black that occasionally watching porn is not necessarily abnormal but for him it would be in violation, a court document states.

The two children with whom he had contact without approval of his parole officer were relatives at a family wedding, his uncle Chris Black testified.

He claimed Black was unaware the child restrictions included family members. His nephew was never alone with the children, he said.

Defense attorney Stuart R. Crichton pointed out Black has completed sex offender treatment and had been attending a weekly Bible study until re-arrested July 6. He since has started a small Bible study group in the prison, he said.

Black had pleaded guilty to an institutional sexual assault charge and was sentenced Sept. 21, 2020, to 7 to 24 months minus a day in the county prison followed by two years of probation.

He admitted having sexually assaulting a 17-year-old student on Nov. 24, 2018, inside his Lock Haven home after he had picked up the girl at a friend’s house.

During the investigation the girl provided police with screenshots of messages from Black including one in which he called her “gorgeous.”

Salisbury told Black when he sentenced him then: “It wasn’t just crossing the line. You went way over the line.”

Black was determined not to be a sexually violent predator but was required to register under Megan’s Law for 25 years.

He formerly taught at Bucktail High School near Renovo and was girls’ soccer coach at Central Mountain High School.

The Montoursville Area High School and Mansfield University graduate also was a staff coach at Penn United Soccer Academy in Lemont.