Sex abuse case exposes reporting flaws
DENVER — When former members of the U.S. snowboarding team wanted to report sex-abuse allegations against a longtime coach, they received conflicting information that left them unsure of where to turn — or whether they wanted to pursue the cases at all.
An Instagram post during the Olympics by a former U.S. team member led to allegations that coach Peter Foley had molested them, coerced them into taking naked pictures, crawled into bed with them and nurtured an atmosphere in which women were treated as sex objects.
The episode has raised questions as to whether the reporting system for sexabuse cases in Olympic sports, redesigned in the wake of former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s abuse of hundreds of athletes, is working the way it should some five years since the overhaul.
Foley has denied wrongdoing. His attorney, Howard Jacobs, said that as of March 30 — 10 days after Foley was fired by the U.S. Ski & Snowboard federation and more than seven weeks after the allegations began surfacing — the 56-year-old coach had not been contacted by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, the organization formed to investigate claims such as those involving Foley.
“We only received the allegations from the U.S. Center for SafeSport after I emailed them to request that they provide them,” Jacobs said.
The Associated Press reviewed a series of emails between the athletes, an attorney at the U.S. Ski & Snowboard federation and employees at the U.S. Center for SafeSport that ensued after the initial social-media post by snowboarder Callan Chythlook-Sifsof. The correspondence painted a picture of athletes who didn’t trust their own sports federation to handle the cases appropriately and a SafeSport center that had received information on the case but would not pursue it unless it heard from the accusers themselves.
One email to USSS attorney Alison Pitt sent by a SafeSport intake coordinator said athletes “need to be educated that if they are not willing to come forward, be named and participate in the process, they are in effect choosing to participate in a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that nothing can or will be done to the accused.”
The email continued by saying accusers “seem to believe they can throw out allegations and Foley will be removed.”
That correspondence conflicts with the center’s own bylaws, which state “nothing in this Code shall be construed to require a victim of child abuse or other misconduct to selfreport.” The bylaws also warn that anonymous reports can limit the center’s ability to respond.
Asked for details about this and other emails, spokeswoman Annie Skinner
said the center does not comment about particular cases “to protect the integrity of the process and the confidentiality of affected individuals.”
“Correspondence with an NGB about a particular matter should not be considered a comprehensive representation of the center’s information or investigative intentions,” Skinner said.
While the SafeSport Center asked, and waited, for victims to come forward, Pitt, the USSS lawyer, might have had a potentially chilling effect on one athlete’s decision about whether to contact the center. An ESPN report that detailed the allegations quoted an unnamed Olympic medalist as saying the attorney described an “extensive and challenging” reporting process.
“It did make me question whether I wanted to go through with that process,” the athlete said.
USSS CEO Sophie Goldschmidt told AP that Pitt was “transparent that the process may take time” in her discussion with the athlete, but assured her that reporting to the SafeSport Center was the only way for the case to be resolved.
It took more than five weeks for either oversight organization to take decisive action against Foley: U.S. Ski & Snowboard fired him as a result of its own workplace investigation on March 20, two days after the SafeSport Center put him on temporary suspension pending its abuse investigation.