Crime & Safety

Hill-Murray Football Coach Mark Mauer Resigns Amid Prostitution Allegations

Mark Mauer, of Woodbury, was one of 19 men caught in a Fridley police sting.

Mark Mauer, the Hill-Murray School football coach who was charged last week following a prostitution sting in Fridley, has resigned, according to multiple reports.

The 54-year-old from Woodbury was charged with a misdemeanor in connection with the two-day police operation at a Fridley hotel. He was booked at the Anoka County Jail and released. Investigators are preparing the cases for the city prosecutor.

Mauer resigned as both the football coach and major-gifts officer, according to the Star Tribune.

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Related: Hill-Murray Football Coach Arrested in Fridley Prostitution Sting

Mauer was arrested Feb. 19 at the LivInn Hotel in Fridley as part of the police sting. Officers booked four rooms at the hotel. In one room, a female police officer working undercover met the men who answered ads offering sex on Backpage.com and other websites.

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Police say Mauer offered an undercover officer $100 for “full service” and was found with $100 cash and Viagra pills, according to a FOX 9 story.

In an interview with police, Mauer said he was “just messing around,” according to a CBS News story.

In 2012, his first year at Hill-Murray, Mauer led the Pioneers, a perennial high school football power, to the state tournament in Class 4A. It was his first coaching job at the high school level.

Mauer, a cousin of Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer, has a long career in football, both as an athlete and coach.

The Minnesota Twins drafted him out of St. Paul’s Harding High School, but he opted instead to attend the University of Nebraska, where as quarterback he led the Cornhuskers to two Big Eight titles. After college he held coaching positions at Nebraska, North Dakota State, University of Wisconsin and New Mexico State.

Mauer returned to his hometown in 2004 to serve as head football coach at Concordia University. Then, in June 2011, he left.

He sold cars at the Mauer family auto dealership until landing the Hill-Murray job in May 2012. Mauer also served on the St. Paul City Council in 1997, after the council voted 5-1 to choose him over five other candidates to fill the remaining year in the term of Councilman Dino Guerin, who was elected to the Ramsey County Board in 1996.

He has a court hearing in Anoka scheduled for March 20.


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