A (Teeth-Pulling) Q & A With Andy Lehner — Who Coached Shortly After Rapist Former Irish Olympic Coach George Gibney at USA Swimming’s North Jeffco Club Out of the Apex Park and Recreation District in Arvada, Colorado
March 20, 2018Twitter Digest of the Current Status of the Mystery of George Gibney at the North Jeffco Swim Club Out of Apex Park & Rec in Arvada, Colorado
March 21, 2018
March 20, 2018
Re: Requests for information-former employee records
Dear Mr. Muchnick:
This law firm serves as General Legal Counsel to the Apex Park & Recreation District (“Apex”). I have reviewed a string of several emails which you have sent to Executive Director Lauri Dannemiller and other Apex staff over a period of the last seven-days, seeking information on the background, including application for employment, from a former, part-time swim coach named George Gibney, who apparently had a brief employment relationship with the North Jeffco Metropolitan Recreation District (now Apex Park & Recreation District) in the 1994-1995 time span. This letter is intended to address your various emails as well as to clarify some of the points you have raised in your emails to staff.
Regarding your request for records, Apex staff have undertaken a sincere effort to research historical files related to this former employee, as well as an additional individual you mention named Ken Kelly, and have been responsive to your request with as much information as could be verified within the District’s archived public records (which is unfortunately, not much). Apex staff reviewed information that they were able to find in news articles printed at the time of the incidents you recount in your emails, which we expect you have also reviewed. However, Apex does not have any records which confirm any additional information related to your requests.
Further, the incidents you recount in your article (which you have provided to Apex’s staff) contain information which Apex also cannot confirm. There are no records or personnel with a memory of the incidents you recount. Additionally, you have sent requests to two individuals associated currently with the North Jeffco Hurricanes swim team. While the North Jeffco Hurricanes were apparently operating under the auspices of the District at the time of Mr. Gibney’s employment, and so the records related to his employment would be Apex records, the North Jeffco Hurricanes are now an independent organization operating with a usage agreement to operate the swim team at Apex facilities. As a result, Apex staff cannot speak for or on behalf of the current swim team, and likewise, North Jeffco Hurricanes staff do not have any independent access to research any of the personnel files of current or former District employees.
On behalf of Apex Park & Recreation District, please know that the District takes personnel complaints very seriously, and is committed to providing a safe and enjoyable experience for the visitors and employees of its facilities. While certain records of a public employer related to a public employee may not be released without a court order, in this instance, there simply are no records which provide any information to produce.
Please direct any questions you may have about this letter, or the District’s responses and responsiveness to your inquiry, through me.
Sincerely,
Linda M. Glesne
***
Ms. Glesne:
I have received your letter of March 20, 2018, and I will publish it in full at ConcussionInc.net.
Though your point is taken, I am not sure you realize how ridiculous is your statement: “… Apex staff have undertaken a sincere effort to research historical files related to this former employee [George Gibney], as well as an additional individual you mention named Ken Kelly …” Allow me to explain.
The name is Ken Kelley (not Kelly). Of course, everyone is guilty of a typo from time to time; I make several every day. But here the botched reference to “an additional individual you mention” is inapt to the point of absurdity. Ken Kelley was a revered figure in your community. After he died in November 2016, your client Apex Park & Recreation published a laudatory memorial article about him. See “Coach Ken Kelley Remembered for a Life Dedicated to Swimming,” https://apexprd.org/2016/12/21/coach-ken-kelley-remembered-life-dedicated-swimming/.
So your diligent research evidently did not include a review of Apex’s own website.
But I am not seeking just to bust you for a technical error, Ms. Glesne. What I am trying to do is to get the employees or contractors or associates of your client — or anyone in Arvada and environs — to share any information, complete or partial, in documents or otherwise, that might contribute to a better understanding of how the former two-time head coach of the Irish Olympic swim team, fleeing dozens of allegations of child sexual abuse, came to join the coaching staff at North Jeffco in 1994. See https://concussioninc.net, passim — including this statement by U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer in his opinion in my Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, Muchnick v. Department of Homeland Security: “[Muchnick] suspects that the American Swimming Coaches Association greased the wheels for Gibney’s relocation.”
No doubt almost all, perhaps 100 percent, of the good people of Greater Denver who had any experience of Gibney’s presence were unaware that someone who would become notorious as perhaps the most wanted sex criminal in the history of global sports was being harbored at the local swim club. But some people must know some things in retrospect, large or small, that could advance this narrative in ways that could bring relief to his dozens of victims in Ireland — one of whom Gibney raped and impregnated on American soil when she was a teenager — and to their many advocates supporting the campaign to have him extradited and brought to justice. These advocates include a distinguished member of Ireland’s national assembly, Maureen O’Sullivan, who is reaching out to sister American politicians to have Gibney’s long-time resident alien status reconsidered and to coordinate the sharing of the records of his heinous acts by law enforcement agencies in Ireland and the United States.
I look forward to hearing back from anyone on this basis.
Sincerely,
Irvin Muchnick
PREVIOUSLY: