New Jersey wrestling coach and state champion Alec Donovan, 26, is jailed for distributing child sex abuse images of boys as young as eight years old

A New Jersey youth wrestling coach and former state champion who made headlines for becoming the NCAA’s first openly gay college wrestler has been sentenced to more than seven years in a case involving images of children.

Alec Donovan, 26, of Brick, was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Trenton to 87 months in prison on a previous guilty plea to a charge related to distributing images of child sexual abuse, the U.S. attorney’s office said Friday.

Prosecutors alleged that during the first four months of 2021, Donovan used a web-based messaging application to send three videos and receive two videos containing images of child sexual abuse involving pre-pubescent children.

Some of the boys in the pornography that Donovan watched and sent were as young as eight, according to the FBI. 

Alec Donovan, 26, of Brick, was sentenced Thursday in federal court

He became state champion for wrestling nine years ago, when he was a high school senior

They also alleged he used the application to ask for nude photographs from minors and also send them nude images of himself.

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi sentenced Donovan to 30 years of supervised release, prosecutors said. 

A message seeking comment was sent Saturday to Donovan’s attorney.

Donovan, a youth wrestling coach and referee who was a former New Jersey state high school wrestling champion, was the subject of a story on Outsports.com in 2015 after he publicly acknowledged he was gay while on a college recruiting trip. 

In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Zahid Quraishi sentenced Donovan to 30 years of supervised release, prosecutors said

Donovan (left) during one of his wrestling fights in his heyday. He's now been jailed on child porn charges

A 2017 story in the NCAA-published Champion magazine detailed Donovan’s struggles with depression in high school and his efforts to counsel other gay wrestlers. 

He became state champion for wrestling nine years ago, when he was a high school senior. 

Donovan also qualified for the NCAA Division III national wrestling tournament at 165 pounds as a junior at Centenary University in 2019.