Coach Pleads Guilty to Child Porn

An Arlington County youth basketball coach pleaded guilty in federal court yesterday to downloading hundreds of images of child pornography that showed children as young as a few months old engaged in sexually explicit acts, prosecutors said.

Thomas "Randy" White, a Washington lobbyist, admitted in U.S. District Court in Alexandria that the images and videos depicted "bondage and sadomasochistic acts" along with sex between prepubescent boys, according to court documents. The documents said White's screen names included "Wakhoops2" and "HoopInNVa."

White, 53, was the longtime director of the NOVA United AAU basketball league and coached boys ages 15 to 17, prosecutors said. A rival coach said that White's teams were "the powerhouses of the region" and that high school basketball coaches sent him their best players for the spring and summer league.

"Everyone told their kids to try out for him because he was the best," said the rival coach, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the nature of White's plea. "He was a good organizer, a good recruiter. This is just shocking."

White faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 27. His lawyer, Peter Greenspun, said White ran the league from his Arlington home and closed it several month ago as the investigation intensified.

"He's a terrific guy, with no criminal record," Greenspun said. "This is another in a long line of cases where people get sucked into the seamy underbelly of the Internet, and it leads to this type of tragic behavior."

He added that White "is terribly remorseful."

White's congressional disclosure forms indicate that he has lobbied for companies such as AT&T as well as the telecommunications industry and trial lawyer groups.

Court documents said the investigation began last year with the search of the Mobile, Ala., home of a man who admitted that he traded Internet pornography with others. One of those individuals was identified as White, the documents said. White's home was searched in February.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.