Former Farmington basketball coach on trial for sexual assault charges

FARMINGTON, Mich. (FOX 2) - The trial of a former Farmington High School basketball coach, accused of sexually assaulting two students, began on Tuesday.

"I’m sitting there scared. I didn’t know what to do. I'm just sitting there scared, hoping I could make it home," one of the teenagers said during his testimony. 

The teen says his former basketball coach, 43-year-old Jeremy Thompkins, sexually assaulted him during a massage. 

Thompkins was charged with sexually assaulting a 15-year-old boy and a 16-year-old boy – both students at Farmington High School.

The identities of the teenagers remain anonymous due to being underage.

One of the high school students took the stand before the jury on Tuesday, detailing an encounter at Thompkins' Detroit home – which he would frequently stay at to practice basketball.

But one night in the fall of 2023, when he was just 15 years old, he said stretching with Thompkins turned to a massage on the coach’s bed. 

The student said he did not ask for a massage.

"Then he started kind of going up to my thigh area, and he had asked me to take my shorts off," the minor said in court.

Thompkins then began touching him beneath his underwear, he added.

"He eventually sits back down on the bed, and then lays back and kind of goes to sleep," the teen said.

That is when he put on his shoes and stood by the door. Shortly after, Thompkins drove the boy home, where he told his mom what happened.

"I started tearing up a little bit, and I gave her a hug and told her what happened," he said.

Court will be back in session Wednesday at 9:30 a.m.