Sep 15, 2006 By Jennifer Harr 6 min read

A panel of Fayette County jurors acquitted Mark R. Downs Jr. of the most serious charge against him, but convicted him of conspiracy to commit simple assault and corruption of minors on Thursday. Downs, 29, of Dunbar stared straight ahead as the verdicts were announced following nearly seven hours of deliberations. State police charged that he offered a member of his Falcons T-ball team $25 to hit autistic teammate Harry Bowers Jr. so that he could not participate in a June 27, 2005 playoff game.

Keith Reese Jr., 9, of Uniontown testified that Downs whispered the offer to him in the parking lot of the Oliver field in North Union Township before their game. His father, Keith Sr., testified that Downs admitted he offered the money, saying he “did something ignorant.”

The jury forewoman, Michele Lynn of Smock said she and the other jurors believed the testimony of 11-year-old Bower., who was hit in the ear and groin, and Reese Jr.

“We believed Keith was instructed to hit Harry in some way,” she said. “In this case, the children were more believable than the coach.”

Lynn said Downs testimony was doubtful to her.

“He said everyone else who testified had lied,” she said, noting jurors believed he was “flat and non-expressive” in what he had to say.

She said she hoped that the verdict would send a message to coaches.

“I hope there is a precedent set that other coaches think before they speak,” she said. “They need to think that something serious could happen.”

Lynn said the jury acquitted of solicitation to commit aggravated assault because they did not believe that Bowers sustained serious bodily injury. They deadlocked on a charge of recklessly endangering another person for a similar reason, and Judge Ralph C. Warman declared a mistrial on that charge.

District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon said she will not retry Downs on that charge.

“I’m not going to put the children through it again,” she said.

Vernon said she was pleased with the verdict because it affirmed the testimony of the children.

“The jury believed the little boys were telling the truth,” she said. “It was very courageous for both of them to take the stand.”

She said that all coaches should notice Downs’ actions.

“Mr. Downs was a coach, and coaches, parents and teachers all have a responsibility to bring children up. This was a serious breach of sportsmanlike conduct,” she said.

Vernon said she believed the story needed to be told to a jury so that they could make the final determination of guilt.

“I’m happy that the jury agreed that he did this,” she said.

Downs’ attorney, Thomas W. Shaffer, said he was “very surprised” at the verdict because he believed there was ample reasonable doubt.

He said he intends to appeal it to the Superior Court and said that Warman should have allowed more testimony from Eric Forsythe, the president of the R.W. Clark League. Forsythe, Shaffer said, would have testified that an eight-member panel from the league cleared Downs of wrongdoing, and that Darlene Reese, Keith Jr.’s stepmother, told him to forget about the complaint she had made because it was a misunderstanding.

“In reality, the truth did not come out,” Shaffer said.

In his closing remarks, Shaffer painted Downs as a coach who made numerous accommodations for a player with several developmental disabilities.

“Mark accommodated Harry on many occasions. Why? Because Jennifer Bowers (Harry’s mother) complained.”

Shaffer said that Downs made an exception to put Bowers on his team after his mother signed up late, and that the league let Bowers play in a t-ball league although he was past the cut-off age.

“He wanted to play this kid,” Shaffer said.

Although the Reeses testified that Keith Jr. could throw hard, Shaffer downplayed the child’s ability to throw hard enough to seriously injure Bowers.

“There was never a real possibility that a child of 8 years of age could throw a ball from one side of right field to another to (inflict) serious bodily injury or a simple assault,” Shaffer said.

To prove solicitation to commit aggravated assault, jurors had to believe that Reese Jr. could throw hard enough to inflict serious injury to Bowers.

Although Vernon argued that Downs’ family would lie for him during their testimony, Shaffer said that they just happened to be the ones who were there. He called baseball a family sport.

Downs’ fianc?e and children testified they arrived at the field to play the game about seven minutes before it started, and there was no time for him to talk to Reese Jr.

Shaffer suggested that the Reese Sr. made up Downs admission to him about the deal.

“When it’s your child, parents really put their flesh and blood in the best possible light to protect them. They never think objectively,” Shaffer argued.

He said that the younger Reese may have hit Bowers accidentally, and the made the false claim that Downs put him up to it.

“When he said it, he was in too deep to change,” Shaffer argued.

Although prosecutors wanted to paint Downs as an ultra competitive coach, Shaffer said that simply wasn’t the truth.

“He was an unpaid volunteer with no potential for another job. He was there for the kids,” Shaffer said, asking for an acquittal on all charges.

In her closing remarks, Vernon said that baseball is part of Americana.

“You never expect you’re going to be out before the first pitch,” she said. “But coaches do things like this because we live in the real world.”

She acknowledged that most volunteer coaches are good people, but said there are a small percentage who get “consumed with winning.”

“What’s particularly unfathomable is this is only a t-ball league. These are young kids,” Vernon said.

Vernon told the jury that someone was lying.

“There’s no middle ground, there’s no gray area,” she told the panel.

She said there was no good reason for Keith Sr. to “put all the attention on his son, and let the world know he hit another boy.”

She also said that children are not likely to lie about serious thing because “they haven’t learned yet to be manipulative.”

“Downs’ coaching taught him one thing – and that’s that you hurt people for money,” she said.

Downs and his family, and Bowers and his family left the courtroom without comment.

During their deliberations, jurors returned to the courtroom twice to ask Warman to redefine charges. Their first question was on the elements of solicitation to commit aggravated assault and reckless endangerment. They returned a few hours later to again ask for the definition of reckless endangerment.

Warman continued Downs’ bond, and set his sentencing for Oct. 12.