Here you go, folks! This is the war being waged on the next generation. The evidence maintains that people knew, and turned their back on hundreds of kids being abused -- FOR DECADES!
Felons convicted of abuse against minors were never flagged by the swimming association, and were allowed to go on coaching. And our Howdy-Doody-faced friend James Comey was apprised and did nothing! Well, at least he's consistent. Naturally, Californication plays a central part in this. The article states:
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/02/16/investigation-usa-swimming-ignored-sexual-abuse-for-decades/
USA Swimming has also paid $77,627 to lobbying firms to lobby against legislation in California that would have made it easier for sexual abuse victims to sue their abusers and the organizations they worked for or represented in civil cases.
Yup, these pervs lobbied AGAINST our kids and FOR predators. Wrap your brain around that one for awhile!
The article is rife with shocking allegations that mirror Sandusky at Penn State. Seems it served as a template for what was taking place across the country. And there was the enabler, USA Swimming Executive Director Chuck Wielgus covering it all up and sweeping it under the rug. This theme of enablers just happening to be in positions of power is recurring. There has to be a purge of these enablers from decision making roles. And, definitely, they should be held accountable and thrown in prison. If they covered up illegalities, they should take responsibility, but I've yet to see an indictment brought. Officials always wait until this linchpin is dead to unearth the buried secrets.
There have been 252 coaches arrested in the twenty years that Weigus reigned. TWO HUNDRED FIFTY-TWO! We all know the damage one perv can do, and this attests to hundreds of coaches! One thing is clear and that is the sexual abuse is epic.
Here's more from the same link given above. It's so frightening:
For decades the sexual abuse of young athletes by their coaches lingered just beneath the surface in American swimming’s otherwise golden waters.
In 2005, USA Swimming president Ron Van Pool decided it was time to bring the issue to the surface.
Giving his annual State of Swimming address, Van Pool pushed for a more aggressive approach within the sport to taking on sexual abuse.
...
Five years later, Wielgus was asked in a deposition if, in the wake of Van Pool’s speech, if USA Swimming had taken any steps to bring the organization up to speed on the sexual abuse issue?
“No,” said Wielgus, who died last April after a lengthy battle with colon cancer.
...
The two decades after Wielgus was hired at USA Swimming have been marked by record-shattering Olympic success and the organization’s inability to check swimming’s culture of sexual abuse, a failure that has resulted in hundreds of new young victims, SCNG has found.
USA Swimming repeatedly missed opportunities to overhaul a culture within American swimming where the sexual abuse of underage swimmers by their coaches and others in positions of power within the sport was commonplace and even accepted by top officials and coaches, according to the documents and interviews with sexual abuse survivors, former Olympians, USA Swimming officials, safe sport advocates and some of USA Swimming’s leading financial benefactors.
For example, three U.S. Olympic team head coaches, and a USA Swimming vice president were told in the 1980s that a world-renowned coach has sexually abused a female swimmer beginning when she was 12. Wielgus was informed of allegations against the coach at least three times in recent years. But not only did USA Swimming not pursue a case against the coach, it allowed him to continue to have access to USA Swimming facilities, U.S. Olympic and national team events, and the Olympic Training Center. USA Swimming even awarded the club owned and operated by him more than $40,000 in grants. The coach was only banned after pleading guilty to sexual assault, more than a quarter-century after the abuse was first brought to the attention of the Olympic coaches.
• In the more than 20 years since Wielgus took charge of USA Swimming in July 1997, at least 252 swim coaches and officials have been arrested, charged by prosecutors, or disciplined by USAS for sexual abuse or misconduct against individuals under 18. Those coaches and officials have a total of at least 590 alleged victims, some of them abused while attending pre-school swim classes.
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ReddittRefugee ago
These pedophilia cases are going to keep resurfacing in every sport.
There's a basic reason: Wherever you have kids being concentrated together for an activity, pedophiles will involve themselves in the activity, to get access to the children.
https://www.si.com/vault/1999/09/13/266260/every-parents-nightmare-the-child-molester-has-found-a-home-in-the-world-of-youth-sports-where-as-a-coach-he-can-gain-the-trust-and-loyalty-of-kids--and-then-prey-on-them
AngryMimi ago
ReddittRefuge you are exactly 100% right; sad but true.