Teen girls' volunteer soccer coach charged as perv

Vincent Mickle spent time on the field, volunteering with a girls' soccer team in the Northeast, but he was playing a different field online, where he initiated inappropriate relationships with underage girls, police said yesterday.

Mickle, 33, of the city's Mayfair section, had at least six illegal relationships, some of which lasted for as long as two years, with girls ranging in age from 14 to 16, Special Victims Unit Capt. John Darby said.

An investigation began into Mickle in October, when a 16-year-old girl whom he had met over My-Space in 2007 contacted police after she got scared when he showed up at her field hockey game, Darby said.

She told police that when she met Mickle online, he made himself out to be 18 but that when she met him at Frankford and Cottman avenues in Northeast Philadelphia in July 2008, she learned he was 31.

He showed up with a bottle of vodka and solicited sex from her but she declined, police said.

Still, she continued a phone and Internet relationship with Mickle until he showed up at her game, Darby said.

Through investigations, police found five more underage girls Mickle had had relationships with, four of whom he had met in person and at least one of whom he'd had sexual contact with, police said.

Darby said all of the contacts were similar: They involved Mickle requesting the girls' to share photos of themselves over the computer and cell phone, and offers to buy them alcohol or marijuana.

"The way this evolved, this male really acted as a predator. He took his time, he was patient," Darby said."

Authorities attempted to lure Mickle into an online relationship with a young woman they fabricated, but that didn't work because some of the real victims who had been interviewed by cops continued to stay in contact with Mickle and informed him of the investigation, police said.

Mickle served as a volunteer assistant coach with a girls' community soccer team in the Northeast that police declined to identify. Police do not believe that he victimized any of the young girls on the team, Darby said.

Mickle, of Teesdale Street near Cottman Avenue, has an 11-year-old daughter, who is pictured with him in his Facebook profile photo. Police said that the girl did not live with him and that the Department of Human Services has been made aware of the case.

The charges against Mickle include multiple counts of solicitation to commit indecent sexual intercourse, sexual abuse of children and indecent exposure. He is being held on $300,000 bail.