Ex-Lynn Pop Warner coach admits to child rape

SALEM – A former Lynn Pop Warner coach who admitted to raping a teenage boy beginning at age 13 at the coach?s Wyman Street home was placed on probation for the next 10 years.Martin MacKenzie, 40, currently of 78 Clarendon St., Lynn, was about to go on trial on a charge of statutory rape, but instead worked out a deal and pleaded guilty Monday afternoon in Salem Superior Court to a charge of statutory rape of a child before Judge Timothy Q. Feeley.The plea offer came with a series of special conditions which include that while MacKenzie is on probation he is to register as a sex offender as the law applies, provided a blood sample for the DNA state data base, undergo and complete a sex offenders treatment program, have no unsupervised conduct with children under the age of 16 and stay away from his accuser.Assistant District Attorney Kristen R. Buxton stated that MacKenzie befriended the victim through coaching when the victim was 10 years old. The victim, in response to distress with his immediate family, began sleeping over MacKenzie?s home, then at 58 Wyman St., in Lynn.The boy slept over often in a sleeping bag in MacKenzie?s bedroom.At some point, the boy told authorities he awoke and found MacKenzie rubbing his back and that eventually escalated to his buttocks.The acts culminated into sexual assaults beginning in the fall of 1990 when he was 13, continuing until age 14.The victim told authorities that MacKenzie also performed oral sex on the teenager, Buxton reported.The victim has no memory to the actual number of times the sexual misconduct occurred. He eventually moved out, but maintained a relationship with MacKenzie.He did not come forward to law enforcement authorities until 2008 when he became concerned because MacKenzie had befriended another teenager and he did not want him in the same situation as he was, Buxton explained.Buxton went on to stress that the joint recommendation to the court was “difficult in light of the abuse,” while explaining the commonwealth?s limited corroborating evidence in the case due to the time frame involved.?There was a long standing relationship. It?s not just the actual assaults itself. It?s everything that followed it. I want you to know I feel sad as if it was a second assault on me,” the victim, now age 32, told Feeley during sentencing.?Not only were there assaults in Massachusetts, there also were places in New Hampshire,” the victim added.Defense attorney Thomas Drechsler urged the judge to adopt the recommended punishment saying it was the product of considerable negotiations while pointing out his client has no prior criminal record, was a volunteer coach and has family support.He went on to emphasize that never had anyone else say he committed any inappropriate conduct.Feeley said he would accept the recommendation noting he has great respect and confidence from both attorneys and that this recommendation is their best judgment of the case.MacKenzie was indicted by an Essex County grand jury in July 2009 and has been free on $2,500 cash bail since being arraigned in Salem Superior Court.