Six file sex abuse lawsuits against USA Swimming

NEW YORK • Six women have sued USA Swimming, saying the national governing body for the sport failed to protect them from coaches who were sexual predators when they were pre-teens and teenagers decades ago, according to multiple civil lawsuits filed in two California courts.

The lawsuits, filed by women now in their 40s and 50s, claim that the organisation enabled those coaches to sexually assault girls and young women for years.

The women's former swimming clubs and swimming associations as well as two of their former coaches also were named as defendants in the lawsuits.

"My sexual abuse was 100 per cent preventable," said Debra Grodensky, 51, a plaintiff in one of the three cases filed in state courts in Orange County and Alameda County with the help of her attorneys Robert Allard and Mark Boskovich.

She said she was abused in the 1980s by her former coach, Andrew King, who is serving a prison sentence of 40 years for child molestation.

Grodensky and three other plaintiffs in her lawsuit sued USA Swimming under a recent California law that opened a three-year window in which people can file sex abuse claims that had expired under the statute of limitations.

Two other women, Tracy Palmero, 46, and Suzette Moran, 53, each filed a separate case against USA Swimming, one of the most influential governing bodies in the country, and other coaches.

Palmero, who claimed that her former coach, Everett Uchiyama, abused her from when she was 16, said on Wednesday during a news conference with several other plaintiffs that filing her lawsuit gives her "an avenue for closure" that was not possible before the new law.

Also named in a suit was Mitch Ivey, a former US Olympic and national team coach.

Ivey, Uchiyama and King have been barred for life from Olympic sports by both USA Swimming and the US Centre for SafeSport, an independent body that tracks abuse in Olympic sports and maintains a database of people who have been barred.

None of them could be reached for comment.

The lawsuits represent the latest blow to a sport that, like gymnastics, has for decades struggled with abusive coaches who take advantage of young and vulnerable athletes.

Federal prosecutors are investigating whether USA Swimming tried to hide sex abuse claims within its sport.

Among those at the centre of those investigations is Chuck Wielgus, the long-time executive director of the federation who died of cancer in 2017 and who was criticised for his mismanagement of abuse claims.

But the plaintiffs in the cases filed last week assert that there was a cover-up that went far beyond him alone.

"Chuck Wielgus was the poster boy bad guy within this organisation," said Allard. "But he did not act alone. Not even close."

A statement from USA Swimming on Wednesday said the organisation was aware of the lawsuits and that its leadership remains "committed to providing a safe environment and a positive culture for all its members".

"We fully support survivors of sexual abuse along their healing journey," it added, noting the three coaches named in the lawsuits had long been banned.

Grodensky said she filed a lawsuit to force the current leadership of USA Swimming to make the sport safer, especially as changes did not happen years ago even after King was sentenced in 2010.

She said that he began abusing her when she was only 12 and first had sexual intercourse with her at 15.

Now, lawsuits in hand, Grodensky and the other women are demanding that the federation take substantial action to protect young athletes.

"I want cultural change and mandated education within this great sport so that child swimmers can thrive without abuse," she said.

NYTIMES