Florida Prosecutor to Address Implications of Video of George Gibney’s 1991 Florida Rape Victim

by Irvin Muchnick

The office of the prosecutor of Hillsborough County, Florida, told Concussion Inc. that it is reviewing the 2006 television news video in which a George Gibney abuse victim discusses the former Irish Olympic swim coach’s rape of her in Tampa hotel room during a 1991 training trip.

Rena J. Frazier, spokesperson for state attorney Andrew H. Warren, said they were not previously familiar with the information and were doing additional research. Frazier said the office would be releasing a statement shortly.

Last week we began streaming, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RyxMTx8Rnk&t=704s, a light edit of a segment from the January 12, 2006, edition of Prime Time, on Ireland’s RTÉ television network. In the report, the 1991 rape victim, not named and with her face obscured, recounted details of the incident.

Our article explaining the use of this newly surfaced video is at https://concussioninc.net/?p=12332.

In 1998, an Irish government investigative commission, chaired by Justice Roderick Murphy, concluded, “In light of the charges arising out of the Garda [national police] investigation the [Gibney] complainants were vindicated.” This report was published four years after Gibney emigrated from Ireland to the U.S. In turn, this followed the collapse of his prosecution on 27 counts of indecent carnal knowledge, after the Irish Supreme Court controversially ruled that the passage of time prevented him from receiving a fair trial. On the 2015 initiative of Irish legislator Maureen O’Sullivan, the Garda’s director of public prosecutions began a fresh review of the Gibney file and reconsideration of seeking his extradition and prosecution.

The full Murphy report is viewable at http://muchnick.net/murphyongibney.pdf. Our article about it is at https://concussioninc.net/?p=10751.

Our inquiry to State Attorney Warren includes both a general and a specific question. The general question is whether the 1991 Tampa incident remains prosecutable under Florida law, and what constructive steps might be considered toward that end. The specific question involves the feasibility of obtaining an affidavit that Irish sources have confirmed the victim gave to the Irish police.

In 2015 Justine McCarthy of London’s Sunday Times reported that the victim, then 17, was impregnated in the rape. She was taken by an Irish swimming official to England for a secret abortion. See https://concussioninc.net/?p=10453; https://concussioninc.net/?p=10456.

My Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, for additional records from Gibney’s American immigration file, is in settlement discussions at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals following a ruling in my favor last year by U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles R. Breyer.

Chronological headllne links to our three-year-long series, “Why Is George Gibney – No. 1 At-Large Pedophile in Global Sports – Living in Florida? And Who Sponsored His Green Card?”, are at https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942.