‘TED AGU PAPERS’ Now Available For Pre-Order on Amazon Kindle
August 5, 2016While Olympics Use Up All the Oxygen, Take in Our Live Investigative Threads on George Gibney, Alex Pussieldi, Dick Shoulberg, Cal Football Death Cover-Up
August 10, 2016
by Irvin Muchnick
Two weeks have passed since Concussion Inc. reported the rumor, from other coaches in USA Swimming’s Florida Gold Coast Swimming affiliate, that Alex Pussieldi’s eligibility had been restored.
The Brazilian Pussieldi is in Rio de Janeiro commentating on the Olympics. But the word is that he has paid off $17,750 in fines to the Florida body and had his “indefinite” suspension lifted.
The fines amounted to an Al Capone-style bust for having misrepresented the residency and club affiliations of many of the swimmers in his charge. The underlying crimes, for which he has not been touched, are de facto human trafficking and various related abuses. In 2004, on the deck of the International Swimming Hall of Fame pool-based club of the late coaching legend Jack Nelson, Pussieldi assaulted a Mexican swimmer who blew the whistle on the coach’s Peeping Tom video system at his house, where he put up foreign athletes who were his wards. All this was in a USA Swimming investigator’s report, but the organization — as well as the Fort Lauderdale police, city parks and rec, and the Sun Sentinel newspaper — covered it up.
Today, Florida Gold Coast Swimming’s listed chair, Allan Williams, does not respond to queries as to Pussieldi’s status. And only two of 15 officials listed underneath Williams have responded. One said the equivalent of “I don’t think Pussieldi is back.”
The other responder, chair of officials Adam Zeichner, said, “I have no knowledge if Alex Pussieldi has been reinstated by USA Swimming and/or Florida Gold Coast Swimming. I’ve copied Dick Cavanah, FGC registration chair, who may have more information.”
Cavanah has not replied to this or to a follow-up.
Concussion Inc.’s ebookTHE TED AGU PAPERS: A Black Life That Mattered – And the Secret History of a Covered-Up Death in University of California Football, which will be published August 22, is available for pre-order on Amazon Kindle at http://amzn.to/2aA2LDl.