Sexual abuse case in Stockton tests USA Swimming leader

For 3½ contentious hours last week in a downtown office in Denver, the chief executive of USA Swimming tried to distance himself and his organization from a lawsuit involving a Stockton girl who was sexually abused by her club coach.

Tim Hinchey III, who took over the national governing body for swimming in 2017, said that he was not familiar with the details of the case and that he had not met the victim, according to a deposition reviewed by the New York Times. He also said he was not aware of any way of verifying that coaches, parents or children had been trained to deal with sexual abuse issues, even though his organization certifies coaches and oversees the sport at nearly every level.

“We can’t be there, on the ground, to support that type of training every single day,” Hinchey testified.

His testimony is central to the case, which is scheduled to go to trial Tuesday in Stockton. The lawsuit will subject USA Swimming’s governance to intense and possibly discomfiting scrutiny at a time when numerous sexual abuse lawsuits involving Olympic sports — such as gymnastics, figure skating and tae kwon do — are winding through the courts. There are also multiple federal investigations of Olympic sports federations, looking into their business practices as well as into accusations of sexual misconduct, according to people with knowledge of the investigations. The investigations were first reported in the Wall Street Journal.

California attorney general Xavier Becerra has also requested files from USA Swimming on at least a dozen coaches, according to USA Swimming emails reviewed by the Times.

Robert Allard, a lawyer for the plaintiff in the Stockton case, has represented several other swimmers in abuse lawsuits against coaches and the federation. “I think this case is a microcosm for how USA Swimming has viewed this issue: ‘I don’t want to deal with this. It’s dirty. It takes up too much of my time. I’d rather focus on other things,’ ” he said.

If Hinchey continues to be “indifferent and putting his hands to his ears and eyes,” Allard continued, “then he will continue to leave children vulnerable to predators.”

A spokeswoman for USA Swimming, Isabelle McLemore, declined to comment directly on the case, citing the litigation. But she said: “We cannot stress enough that athletes’ health and safety is USA Swimming’s No. 1 priority. It has been, it continues to be, and we work to improve it every single day. The athletes are the core of everything we do, and we take that very seriously.”

A former swimmer at UC Irvine, Hinchey worked as an executive in professional sports for two decades, including stops in the NBA, the English Football League and Major League Soccer, before joining USA Swimming in 2017.

He succeeded Chuck Wielgus, who died that year after a twodecade run during which he was credited with elevating the sport’s profile but also criticized for overlooking allegations of sexual abuse.

In the Stockton case, a coach named Shunichi Fujishima pleaded guilty this summer to sexually abusing the plaintiff starting in 2017, the year she turned 12. Fujishima was sentenced last week to 12 years in prison, said Gilbert D. Somera, his lawyer.

During the investigation of Fujishima, documents surfaced indicating that senior USA Swimming officials, Hinchey included, had received copies of written accusations by a parent of another young swimmer against another coach with the same team, the Stockton Swim Club. The parent contended that the coach had committed statutory rape and had sent sexually inappropriate messages.

In response, USA Swimming warned the coach in an email written by Susan Woessner, a senior executive, that “you agreed on the phone that your behavior could be perceived as inappropriate and told me that it won’t happen again.”

That coach has not been charged with a crime and is not listed on the disciplinary database of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an independent organization dedicated to investigating abuse and funded partly by the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

The Stockton lawsuit names Fujishima; the Stockton Swim Club; Pacific Swimming, the regional association; and USA Swimming as defendants.

With a 100person central staff and a $40 million annual budget, USA Swimming has 2,800 local teams and 400,000 members, the vast majority of whom are children. The organization also certifies coaches, who have to complete a series of courses, including one on protecting athletes from abuse, and submit to a background check. And while its main goals are to promote the sport and cultivate competitive success, the USA Swimming website says that “training our members in abuse prevention and mandatory reporting is just as important as creating policies.”

When handling sexual abuse cases, USA Swimming has traditionally relied on several senior staff members, led by the general counsel, Lucinda McRoberts, to make group decisions, according to Woessner, who resigned last year and was deposed last week.

The accusations against the unidentified Stockton coach, for instance, were discussed at least a halfdozen times by senior staff members, Woessner said in her deposition.

David W. Chen writes for the New York Times.