Paul Fasshauser
Introduction
Paul Fasshauser is a 46-year-old Union Mills, Indiana, man who served as the girls volleyball coach at a school in the South Central Community School Corporation and was arrested on October 6, 2026, on 26 felony counts of child exploitation. The school corporation placed him on unpaid administrative leave immediately after his arrest and barred him from school property. The case began with a tip from Snapchat to the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force in May 2026, and investigators say they established probable cause roughly four months later. Fasshauser has been charged, not tried, and is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Background Information
Fasshauser lived in Union Mills, a small town in LaPorte County in Indiana’s north-central region, and coached girls volleyball within the South Central Community School Corporation, a rural district serving Union Mills and surrounding communities. School officials confirmed his coaching role when the arrest became public. The criminal case against him grew out of a May 2026 report from Snapchat itself: the platform sent a tip to the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, the multi-agency unit that investigates online child exploitation in the state. According to police, investigators began examining the suspected material in July 2026 and established probable cause for an arrest two months after that.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Charged, not tried. Fasshauser faces criminal charges that have not been tested in court: he has been arrested and accused, not convicted, and he is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Fasshauser was taken into custody on Tuesday, October 6, 2026, and booked on 26 felony counts of child exploitation. The volume is the striking feature of the charging document, a number that typically reflects prosecutors charging individual files, messages, or images separately rather than a single incident. The specific contents of the probable-cause affidavit — what material investigators found, and whether any of it involved students — were not detailed in the coverage reviewed for this page, which noted only that the investigation had begun with the Snapchat tip and proceeded through the summer.
His coaching position is what converted a criminal case into a school-community scandal. The South Central Community School Corporation confirmed after the arrest that Fasshauser was the girls volleyball coach, placed him on unpaid administrative leave, and issued a statement that he is not allowed on school property. The unpaid status of the leave signals the district treated the arrest as a basis to sever pay immediately rather than await the criminal outcome.
Public Reaction and Consequences
News of the arrest traveled through LaPorte County’s school communities within a day, with WSBT reporting the administrative leave the afternoon after the booking. For a small rural district, the arrest of a varsity coach on child exploitation counts is a community-level event: volleyball rosters, team parents, and the athletic calendar all intersect with the accused’s daily presence. The school corporation’s public posture emphasized distance — unpaid leave, a property ban, and no further comment — while the criminal case remained in its earliest stage. No statement from Fasshauser or an attorney representing him appears in the fetched coverage, and no details about alleged victims were released.
The platform-origin tip is also part of the story: the case began not with a victim’s outcry or a school report but with Snapchat’s own reporting pipeline flagging material to the Indiana ICAC Task Force in May, months before anyone connected to the school was publicly involved.
Current Status
Fasshauser is charged with 26 felony counts of child exploitation and is on unpaid administrative leave from the South Central Community School Corporation, barred from school property. He has not been indicted, has not entered a plea, and no trial date appears in the coverage reviewed for this page. The investigation’s public record ends where the charging documents begin; prosecutors have not detailed the evidence, and the school corporation has not said whether his employment will be terminated outright. He is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.
Impact on Their Career/Life
At 46, Fasshauser’s coaching career ended the day he was booked: unpaid leave and a school-property ban remove him from any contact with the program he led, and a conviction on child exploitation counts would carry a multi-year prison sentence and sex-offender registration in Indiana. The 26-count charging structure gives prosecutors individual counts to pursue, and even an acquittal would leave the school corporation’s own findings to answer. For now the case sits at the junction of a criminal prosecution and a school district’s employment decision, with the former moving faster than the latter.
Sources
- WSBT 22, “Man facing child exploitation charges placed on unpaid administrative leave from school,” October 7, 2026 — source