Former Esky Hockey Coach Admits to Sex Crimes

A former high school hockey coach in the area will be sentenced in January after admitting to several sex crimes.

46-year-old Ward Johnsen pleaded guilty this afternoon to 4 different counts.

Those are aggravated indecent exposure, attempted accosting of children for immoral purposes, attempted use of computers to commit a crime and attempted distribution of sexually explicit visual or verbal matter to children.

Those are all misdemeanors.

He’ll be sentenced on January 5th.

Johnsen turned himself in back in August.

But Public Safety says the investigation started in March when an alleged victim came forward.

Johnsen resigned from both his teaching and his coaching jobs at that point.

He used to teach at Escanaba Middle School.

And he served as the high school’s hockey coach twice, most recently last season.