BREAKING: U.S. Government Releases Revised Index of Withheld Information on Rapist Irish Swim Coach George Gibney — Now 99 New Pages of Redacted Records
George Gibney, Rapist Former Irish National Swim Coach, And His 20+Year American Odyssey: Comprehensive Headline Links
April 12, 2016New U.S. Government George Gibney Papers: Disgraced Irish Rapist Appears to Have Attached to His Visa Application an Offer For an American Coaching Job
April 13, 2016Complete headline links to our George Gibney series: https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942
by Irvin Muchnick
In response to an order from U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in the first round of this reporter’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking George Gibney’s immigration records, the federal government yesterday filed a lengthy new index of withheld information, and added nearly 100 redacted pages of previously withheld records.
Those records would help chronicle how the disgraced former coach of the 1988 Irish Olympic swimming team has managed to live in this country for more than 20 years after fleeing dozens of allegations of sex crimes against his underage athletes and others. A 1998 Irish government commission concluded that Gibney’s accusers were “vindicated.” Today there is a renewed effort to seek his extradition to and prosecution in Ireland — or, alternatively, to bring him to justice here for the 1991 rape of a teenage Irish swimmer he was coaching on a Florida training trip, and who later was whisked to England by an Irish swimming official for a secret abortion.
On February 26, Judge Breyer denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment in Muchnick v. Department of Homeland Security. The court ordered the government to provide more details in the “Vaughn Index” explaining withheld Gibney files. In addition, the government was ordered to reconsider its position that not a single withheld page contained any material that could be “segregated” from legitimately private information.
The result is yesterday’s 142-page government filing. The last 99 of the pages consist of formerly fully withheld pages, which now are heavily redacted instead.
Along with my attorney Roy S. Gordet, I am reviewing these fragmentary records — both to evaluate next steps in the FOIA case and to generate newsworthy items from newly generated public documents.
In the next post, we’ll begin by taking a close look at what may be the most important revelation in this round of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ George Gibney papers: an apparent job offer in swimming in the U.S. at the time Gibney was applying for an American visa.