Ex-WPIAL official admits to second child sexual assault

A former WPIAL official convicted of molesting a 5-year-old girl inside a Hempfield store in 2007 is behind bars again after admitting in a court-mandated sex therapy session to having contact with another girl.

Clint D. "Bubba" Helmick, 47, who lists his address in court documents as Houston, Washington County, was arrested by Westmoreland County officials May 25 after admitting that he recently had contact with a 10-year-old girl. Police said Helmick made the admission during a polygraph examination administered as part of a sex therapy session.

Helmick was a certified Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association official until 2008, when he pleaded guilty to the molestation charges. He was labelled as a sexually violent predator under Pennsylvania's Megan's Law statute after admitting that he molested the 5-year-old in Gabriel Brothers department store in Hempfield in August 2007.

After he admitted to touching the 10-year-old girl, Helmick was picked up on an arrest warrant issued by Judge Debra Pezze for violating terms of his five-year probation.

In 2008, Pezze sentenced Helmick to three months of house arrest plus five years' probation and ordered him to attend sexual offenders classes. After his arrest last month, the judge ordered him held in the county prison without bond until a probation revocation hearing to be held on Aug. 18.

Video surveillance helped police to identify Helmick in the 2007 case, and he later was convicted of indecent assault on a minor.

Police allege Helmick assaulted the girl while she was on a shopping trip with her mother, aunt and brother, according to police. The victim identified Helmick, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 340 pounds, as her assailant, authorities said.

State Trooper John Zalich, the investigator in the 2007 case, could not be reached for comment.