A woman who accused an Ascension parish-area softball coach of molesting her in 2017 is speaking up about the plea deal he received this week.

Jermaine Miles pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent behavior on Monday, six years after his arrest on five counts of child molestation.

In 2017, the Miles and Templet families were close. Jermaine Miles, 37, coached Jaycee Templet in softball.

"We would go sleep over at their house, family vacations, we all went to Disney together," Jaycee Templet said.

Then one day, when Jaycee was 15, something changed.

"We were sitting on the couch, and then he just kept scooting closer and closer to me and opened up his notes app."

Jaycee says he was touching her inappropriately and was asking her questions by typing on his phone.

"He said, 'Do you like this? You can't tell anyone, or I'm going to get in big trouble.’ And I'm just like..."

Despite feeling very uncomfortable, she says she never honestly spoke up about it until she learned her friend and her sister had similar experiences with Miles.

"I was using humor about it to cope with it, so I guess they never fully took me seriously."

Eventually, they all went to the police, and Miles was arrested in 2019 on five counts of child molestation, two years after his encounter with Jaycee.

Because of COVID and various delay tactics by Miles' defense, it would be six years until any movement happened with the case.

Jaycee was prepared to go to trial and testify against him, but just days before the trial was set to begin, Miles took a plea deal.

"I wanted to go to trial because I know the evidence we had and my thing is, he's the one coming and asking for this plea deal, so you know he's the one that doesn't want to do it. He's nervous about what's going to happen if we go to trial because he knows the evidence."

Evidence, like texts between Miles and Jaycee's sister, where she says, "You know what you did," and he responds that it will never happen again and asks her to keep it a secret forever. He adds, "I thought you liked that."

Or a text from Miles to Jaycee where he refers to her as 'Lolita' — a term used to refer to a seductive young girl that comes from a book by the same name about a middle-aged man who is obsessed with a 12-year-old.

However, prosecutors decided against a trial and agreed for Miles to plead guilty to three counts of indecent behavior.

"I would have [gone to trial] if I had everybody participating on several of the accounts," said District Attorney Ricky Babin. He says not all of the victims were willing to testify.

"I could've forced one of them to testify, but you know, I kind of try to give those victims that opportunity, you know what I mean?"

Jaycee says she understands why her sister and the other victim were reluctant to get on the stand.

"Majority rules, so I was fine with that. She has a three-year-old now. She has two babies on the way. They were just ready for it to be done with and I get that," Jaycee said. 

As part of the plea deal, Miles got probation and will be on the sex offender registry for the next 25 years.

Jaycee says she's not really satisfied with the outcome. 

"I want to make it clear that it's not on the ADA or the DA and stuff because I agreed to this. I know that's what the two other victims wanted, but for me? No, I'm not satisfied with that."