George Gibney’s 2010 Application For American Citizenship Was Rejected, With No Other Consequences, Federal Judge Said

Chronological links to our series, which began January 27, 2015, under the headline “Why Is George Gibney — No. 1 At-Large Pedophile in Global Sports — Living in Florida? And Who Sponsored His Green Card?”: https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942

by Irvin Muchnick

George Gibney, the disgraced former Irish Olympic swim team head coach who was established to have concealed from his 2010 citizenship application a 27-count indictment for sex crimes in his native country, found his application rejected by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).

A senior federal judge, Charles R. Breyer, last year publicly disclosed this aspect of Gibney’s American odyssey during an October 26, 2016, hearing of my Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, of which USCIS is a part.

Gibney arrived in this country on a visa more than 20 years ago and has been living here ever since, most recently in Altamonte Springs, Florida.

Procedures in his original visa application, subsequent alien residency, and ultimately the citizenship application, are the nexus of my FOIA case. Shortly after the October hearing, Judge Breyer ruled “(largely) in Muchnick’s favor,” in his words. The government’s appeal of that decision is now in settlement discussions at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

At the 2016 hearing, Breyer discoursed at length and repeatedly regarding his puzzlement over the Gibney citizenship scenario, and the lack of consequences for the notorious coach — arguably the sports world’s most pursued at-large sex criminal — after he lied on his application.

In my same-day item on the hearing, https://concussioninc.net/?p=11517, I wrote:

“I hesitate to report on or characterize the court’s remarks throughout the hearing, for I do not want to compromise the order that is forthcoming and I do not want to substitute my interpretation of them for the simple and full-context publication of the transcript (which I hope to do shortly). However, it was clear that Breyer understood the pertinent history and controversy over the sex crime allegations against Gibney. And it was especially clear that the circumstances and disposition of Gibney’s 2010 U.S. citizenship application could have considerable impact on the judge’s upcoming decision with respect to exactly what will be revealed.”

Newly emerging angles of the Gibney saga now drive Concussion Inc.’s recording of the full comments of Breyer, whose public service history includes time as an assistant prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. He has been on the federal bench since 1997. He is the brother of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer.

The new angles include the recollections of an additional Gibney sexual molestation victim, from 1982 (see https://concussioninc.net/?p=12080; https://concussioninc.net/?p=12083; https://concussioninc.net/?p=12091) and the recent sentencing, on sexual abuse charges, of prominent Irish sportswriter Tom Humphries (see https://concussioninc.net/?p=12259; https://concussioninc.net/?p=12263).

It is nearly three years since Maureen O’Sullivan, who represents the Dublin Central district in Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Irish legislature, requested that An Garda Síochána, the national police, review both past and new information on Gibney’s crimes, for the purpose of reconsidering efforts to get him extradited from the U.S. and retried in Ireland. Irish sources say the Garda review is ongoing.

I have uploaded the transcript of the October 2016 hearing in San Francisco federal court to http://muchnick.net/breyertranscript.pdf.

In his November 2, 2016, ruling, Breyer would summarize the background by stating that “Muchnick … hopes to uncover how American authorities allowed an alleged sexual predator to enter and reside in the United States despite the scandal swirling around him in his native Ireland” and “suspects that the American Swimming Coaches Association greased the wheels for Gibney’s relocation.”

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Here is what Breyer said at the hearing about Gibney’s 2010 citizenship application:

“And in the course of that application, there is a question — a series of questions that were propounded to him and the responses that were given — this is the normal operating procedure — and he was not granted citizenship or permanent residency …”

The judge went on to state:

“And what is missing in all of this is, how is a person permitted to remain in the United States when, in fact, the circumstances of the Ireland experience or what occurred in Ireland are publically known, that’s number one. And number two, if, and I would use the word ‘if,’ he gave false answers in connection with an application, how is it that that somehow doesn’t bring into question the term of his initial visa permit or his initial visa.”

Breyer further elaborated on this theme:

“Let’s say I, as an example, am granted a visa to come to the United States. And subsequent — and I answer all the questions and I don’t answer falsely. Okay. So I mean, I have that visa application. And then a series of events occur which would normally disqualify a person from getting a visa, which maybe is an assumption that I don’t know, that I can’t figure out, but I have to assume that if somebody has been charged with the types of offenses that Mr. Gibney has been charged with, the United States, absent other circumstances, would not grant a visa. We’re not a refuge for pedophiles. And there’s no issue here of which I’m aware of, which is the asylum issue. Okay.

So I apply — it’s unfortunate I’m using me as an example — but I apply, and then some things surface and I go back to Ireland and then I come back to the United States. Now, if we froze events at that point, of course, my question would be, does the visa in the United States, one, expire? And two, if it doesn’t expire, is there a process where Department of Homeland Security reviews visa applications in light of undiscovered information and then takes some conduct, or takes some action. I have no idea whether that’s the case or not.

But that’s not necessarily the case I wanted to posit because the case I wanted to posit goes on from there. And it involves, at that point, me. Because I’m the applicant, I filled out a form, and perhaps, theoretically, I’m not honest in the form that I fill out for further relief; that is, to be a citizen. And so it’s denied. But my question would be, by virtue of that activity, does that then go — didn’t — did somebody in the Department of Homeland Security say, Well, you know this person lied to us today, or whenever that application, I think we have to go back and question the legitimacy of allowing that person to remain in the United States.

There may be reasons to allow him to remain in the United States. There’s nothing that you have submitted to me that indicates any reasons why he’s allowed in the United States, nor any investigation, that I can see, of going back and looking at the original application or the continuation of the visa.”

Breyer continued:

“So the decision wasn’t necessarily made on the criteria that I initially identified, but the decision was made that in our discretion, we choose not to deport this person even though this person gave an untruthful answer …”

And finally:

“I have another question. I think what prompts this question is other litigation that I’ve had on visas because I have had a case in which an individual went abroad, was an American citizen, wasn’t naturalized. I think he was born in the United States, he went abroad, and he wanted to bring his family back from Saudi Arabia I think. And I think the issue — and the argument of the State Department was that he lied on his application for a visa for his family and that, therefore, the visa was rejected, the application was rejected, and they seized his passport.

And it’s the first time I had seen that a citizen of the United States’ passport can be seized. But they quoted some regulations which apparently gave them some authority under the regulations to seize the passport. They said, We’re not denying he’s a citizen, because he is, but we’re taking away his passport because he lied to the authorities, which I found it’s interesting in raising issues that it’s not this case at all.

But, of course, it triggered my mind as to, Well, if somebody is here not even as a citizen but has a visa and arguably lies, what is the procedure that’s followed by the Department of Homeland Security with respect to the applicant — the original application if you’re here legitimately in that you have correctly answered the application.”