Ex-baseball coach at a ritzy NYC private school accused of sexually abusing 7 boys

A former baseball coach at a ritzy Brooklyn private school was accused Thursday of sexually abusing seven boys, forcing players as young as 12 to expose themselves -- and threatening to cut them from the team if they didn’t.

Nicolas Morton, 31, who had worked at the $60,000-a-year Packer Collegiate Institute, also groped at least three of those boys’ genitals, according to details released along with a 20-count sex crime indictment against him in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Fed up with Morton’s alleged sick abuse, the kids, ages 12 to 14, rallied to expose their coach, said Gwen Barnes, who works in the Brooklyn District Attorney’s special victims bureau. 

“Over the summer, this was finally reported, the boys then bravely came forward and stood up for themselves and each other,” Barnes told a judge during Morton’s arraignment Thursday afternoon.

All the boys played on Morton’s private travel team, NYC Freedom Baseball, which pulled kids from Packer and other schools. 

Morton, who was arrested earlier Thursday,  appeared handcuffed, with a bath towel draped over his wrists, in a Brooklyn courtroom for the hearing -- with at least 15 of his friends and family in the audience.

The disgraced coach stood silent, head down, as Barnes revealed a laundry list of accusations against Morton, who faces charges ranging from sex abuse to sexual conduct with a child under 13 years old to forcibly touching kids’ intimate parts.

At the tony Packer Collegiate K-12 school in Brooklyn Heights and other Brooklyn baseball fields, Morton jokingly began making perverted requests of his players, coupled with grueling workouts that he used as leverage to fulfill his leering desires, Barnes said.

“He groomed them by speaking about sex and masturbation and other graphic topics,” Barnes said.

“It got to the point he would threaten that they wouldn’t make the team when they didn’t show him their pubic hair, and sometimes he would insist on seeing their penises,” the prosecutor said. “Not knowing what else to do. They sometimes showed him.”

In other instances, Morton took a perversely playful approach, grazing or tickling the butt of a player as they embraced, the DA’s office alleged.

More disturbingly, Morton would allegedly grope his players -- some of whom he began coaching when they were as young as 11-- above and below their clothes, but over their underwear, Barnes said.

The alleged creepy coach also brazenly insisted at other times that players let him touch their genitals -- and on at least one occasion grabbed a player’s genitals by reaching up their shorts, Barnes said.

Morton’s attorney, Robert Georges, a high-profile defense lawyer whose cases have been turned into reality TV episodes, tried to compel the judge to release his client without bail.

Georges mentioned the outpouring of support and the fact that Morton “comes from a law enforcement family,” with cousins in the Nassau Police Department and the NYPD’s 111 precinct in Bayside, Queens.

But Justice Donald Leo wouldn’t have it. 

The judge set bail at $75,000, which Morton’s lawyer said his client’s father would post.

Morton’s dad carried a thick envelope full of financial records to help prove to the court that the family was more than capable of paying his son’s bail. 

Morton’s parents would not speak to reporters. Members of Morton’s support group called reporters “scum” when leaving the arraignment. 

Nick Morton played baseball while a student at Packer.

Morton had worked as a varsity baseball coach at the Packer Collegiate Institute and in its admissions office until August, when administrators emailed parents that he’d been fired, The Post previously reported.

The bombshell email stated the school had received reports that Morton engaged in a pattern of inappropriate conversations and interactions with both Packer and non-Packer athletes affiliated with its private travel baseball team.

Morton (left) playing in a basketball game for the high school on March 4, 2012.

Morton is also a Packer alumnus and had been a star baseball player for the school’s team, where he was an Under Armour Pre-Season All-American and named to MSG Varsity’s Top 10 list of the best baseball player, according to the now-deleted website for his own private baseball traveling team, NYC Freedom Baseball.

The site stated he attended Trinity University in San Antonio and Washington & Jefferson College in Pittsburgh, where he played baseball.

A source familiar with the situation said Packer parents fear there are more victims, and were concerned school officials had prior knowledge of Morton’s behavior making some students feel uncomfortable.

A Packer representative didn’t return a request for comment.

The next hearing date is set for Dec. 13. (Via NYP)