Ex-North Cobb High Coach in Sexting Case Said He Lost His iPad

The North Cobb High School assistant football coach accused of exchanging racy photos and texts with a 17-year-old girl told district investigators that someone else sent texts "as if it was him."

According to a Cobb County School District Department of Public Safety incident report obtained this week, Ryne Thomas Thackston of Acworth said he lost his iPad, which was synced to his iPhone.

About 7:45 a.m. March 6, Thackston said he received a "good morning" text. The sender is not identified. Before Thackston could respond, according to the incident report, "someone else" answered the text as him.

Thackston said "he tried to respond that this was not Coach but it would just show message send failure."

Those details were not documented in a May 23 Cobb County arrest warrant. In that warrant, authorities allege that Thackston "did send and receive sexually explicit photographs, via text messaging, to and from a seventeen year old female. The accused sent two separate digital images of his penis, via text message, to the victim."

Additionally, officers wrote, Thackston "received numerous digital images and videos of the victim via text messaging. The images and videos showed the victim nude or partially nude and engaging in lewd acts and sexually explicit conduct."

In the school district report, investigators said Thackston acknowledged that he received a picture of someone "with a bra on." When he saw the picture, he told investigators that "he did not look at the other pictures but that he did not tell anyone that (redacted) was sending him pictures on his phone."

Thackston was arrested May 24 on one count of sexual exploitation of children, just hours before North Cobb held its graduation ceremony.

He was released from the Cobb County Adult Detention Center May 25 on a $20,000 bond.

In Thackston's file, Cobb County School District Athletic Director Steve Jones left a note on March 12, 2013.

"MAY NOT COACH in CCSD EVER!"

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