Gymnastics coach engaged in sex acts with ex-student who vanished, FL cops say

A gymnastics coach’s sex offenses against a teen girl were discovered when she went missing as an adult and was found at his home, Florida authorities said.

Alexander Katchalov, a 28-year-old registered sex offender, is now charged with two counts of lewd or lascivious battery on a victim aged 12-16, failure to comply with sex offender registration and violation of probation, according to a July 17 news release from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

Attorney information for Katchalov was not available in court records July 18.

Katchalov used to coach at Elite World Gymnastics, a Lakeland gym owned by his parents, the Bradenton Herald previously reported. McClatchy News reached out to Elite World Gymnastics for comment on the charges but did not immediately receive a response.

In 2018, investigators said they found a large cache of child pornography on Katchalov’s devices, and records show he was convicted of 64 counts of possessing child pornography and sentenced to five years in prison. He was released early in 2022, according to law enforcement.

At the time of Katchalov’s 2018 arrest, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said investigators determined none of the victims shown in the graphic content lived in the area or were students at the gymnastics center, but the nature of the offense prompted detectives to question whether there could be other victims.

“If there are any local children who had regular contact with Katchalov and who have experienced any inappropriate contact from Katchalov, we want parents to call us if they believe their child is a victim,” Judd said in 2018.

Years later, one of Katchalov’s former students, who’s now in her 20s, has come forward to accuse him of sexually assaulting her when she was a teenager, according to investigators.

The past incidents came to light when the woman went missing after failing to show up to a court-ordered program, deputies said.

Detectives found her at her ex-coach’s home in Lakeland, and she told investigators that Katchalov sexually abused her over the course of multiple years when she would have been 13 to 15 years old, a spokesperson with the sheriff’s office told McClatchy News.

Katchalov initially denied it, but after taking a polygraph test, he told investigators he engaged in sex acts with the girl twice in the span of two weeks when she was 15, deputies wrote in an arrest affidavit.

Investigators said Katchalov also violated the conditions of his probation by failing to report an online gaming account and an online message account that he used to communicate with the woman.

Seven years after Katchalov’s first arrest, investigators are again asking any other victims to come forward.

“Given this former gymnastic coach’s deviant background, it is possible that there could be more victims out there,” Judd said in the latest release. “If he has victimized anyone else, we want them to contact our detectives in the Polk County Sheriff’s Office Special Victims Unit.”

Lakeland is about a 35-mile drive northeast from Tampa.