A former mixed martial arts coach was found guilty of sexually assaulting and sexually abusing a girl who trained with him at his Monmouth gym more than a decade ago.
Beau W. Admire, now 43, was around 30 at the time. The victim was 12 when she started training with Admire and 13 when the abuse began.
Ninth Circuit Judge James Standard delivered the guilty verdict following a bench trial Thursday in Warren County, saying the state met the burden of proof based on the testimonies of five witnesses.
Admire was convicted of two counts of sexual assault and one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, all by a person in a position of trust, authority, or supervision over the victim.
Admire ran OSE Wolf Pack Mixed Martial Arts Gym on the third floor and in the basement of 208 S. Main St. in Monmouth, where the victim took classes along with her siblings beginning around 2010.
The victim, now 27 and the mother of a young child, was one of five witnesses who testified for the state.
She calmly and clearly detailed the abuse that started with one-on-one coaching sessions with Admire — during which she was fondled, groped, digitally penetrated, or forced to participate in oral sex at the gym at least ten times — and escalated to sexual intercourse at Admire’s home when she was 14.
She testified she never came forward to police about the abuse at the time because she was afraid it would destroy her family.
According to testimony, the victim’s mother controlled the victim’s phone and often texted Admire from it as her daughter.
The victim also testified she immediately told her mother about the sexual assault at Admire’s house and said her mother panicked because “she was involved.”
So the victim kept quiet about what happened for more than a decade.
The victim’s mother died in March 2022. Five months later, the victim told her father and siblings about Admire’s abuse. Shortly thereafter, she contacted authorities and was then interviewed by the child advocacy center in Galesburg.
Admire was arrested Nov. 2, 2022, on a $100,000 warrant. At the time, he was operating another mixed martial arts gym — and coaching minors – in Galesburg. Badger Combatives has since closed.
At the bench trial, Warren County State’s Attorney Tom Siegel also called Monmouth Police Department Investigator Terry Hepner, and the victim’s father, brother, and sister to the stand.
The family’s testimonies were peppered with objections from defense attorney Andrew Stuckart, who would later argue Admire wasn’t in a position of trust or authority over the victim and the victim wasn’t credible because she waited more than a decade to report the abuse.
In his closing argument, Siegel said he was “blown away” that the defense would even suggest that.
Stuckart also called the victim’s testimony “self-serving” and emphasized there was no physical evidence to support the testimony.
In addition, Stuckart argued the nature of the contact between the victim and the defendant that was considered groping and fondling in the charging documents could be explained by regular movements within MMA training.
He asked the judge for a directed verdict, saying there was not enough evidence for a guilty verdict.
But Standard denied it.
The judge ruled that Admire was in a position of trust and authority and those weren’t regular movements with mixed martial arts.
He also said it’s not uncommon for there to be no physical evidence in a case or for a victim, especially a child, to not immediately come forward.
And Standard said the court found the victim credible.
He said he was impressed by the victim’s “composure, candor, and forthrightness” in testifying about things that clearly caused her a great deal of stress and mental anguish.
A sentencing hearing for Admire is scheduled for Aug. 9.
