Former coach launches new appeal

Hollingshead seeks reduction of length for sex offender registration

HOLLIDAYSBURG -- A former Altoona Area School District assistant soccer coach has launched another attempt to reduce the length of her sex offender registration requirement.

Kyla Hollingshead, 32, Pittsburgh, is asking the Blair County Court for a hearing that would impose a 10-year registration period to replace a lifetime registration requirement that she maintains shouldn't have been imposed.

Hollingshead, who included this position in a 2018 appeal that was denied by county and state appeal courts, has raised the issue again, this time in a state writ of habeas corpus petition that was filed in March with the county court.

The petition, according to Hollingshead, seeks to correct an illegal sentence.

Judge Timothy M. Sullivan scheduled Thursday to review the petition but put it on hold after Hollingshead said she has secured an attorney to represent her.

Assistant District Attorney Derek Elensky agreed to delay the review but went on record against Hollingshead's petition.

Elensky also asked for John J. Herman, deputy counsel for the Pennsylvania State Police, to be notified of future proceedings. State police are responsible for managing registration records of convicted sex offenders and for maintaining the state's Megan's Law website that's available to the public.

Hollingshead's lifetime registration requirement was imposed in 2014 after a hearing in which she was deemed to be a sexually violent predator, a term used to indicate a likelihood of reoffending.

The hearing was scheduled after Hollingshead, in December 2013, rendered guilty pleas to corruption of a minor and institutional sexual assault offenses in exchange for 60 days to 23.5 months in Blair County Prison, followed by 30 months' probation.

Altoona police filed the charges after learning that Hollingshead had pursued and engaged in romantic relationships with two soccer team members, a 15-year-old girl in 2010 and a 16-year-old girl in 2012.

In her state writ of habeas corpus petition, Hollingshead references several changes in the state's Megan's Law and registration requirements, through appellate court rulings and revisions to the state's Sexual Offenders Registration and Notification Act.

For her convictions in December 2013 -- based on when she entered her pleas -- and for offenses that occurred prior to Sexual Offenders Registration and Notification Act enactment date of Dec. 20, 2012, she maintains that the 10-year registration requirement is appropriate.

The lifetime registration requirement she's being required to follow is unconstitutional, she maintains in her petition, because it was applied retroactively.

That position, along with an argument challenging the sexually violent predator designation, were included in a post-conviction petition filed in Blair County in January 2018. That petition, which Sullivan reviewed, was dismissed as untimely, a conclusion the state Superior Court upheld in June 2019. The state Supreme Court, when asked to review the ruling, denied further appeal.

Mirror Staff Writer Kay Stephens is at 814-946-7456.