‘George Gibney Chronicles’ — eBook About Two-Continent Hunt For Irish Olympic Swimming Coach and Fugitive Sex Criminal — Publishes March 1

Independent journalist and author Irvin Muchnick’s ebook on the the quarter-century-long, fugitive-tinged story of Irish Olympic swimming coach George Gibney — the culmination of four years of reporting and a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security — will be published on Friday, March 1.

The George Gibney Chronicles: What the Hunt For the Most Notorious At-Large Sex Criminal in the History of Global Sports Has Told Us About the Sports Establishments and Governments on Two Continentsis available for $3.49 US at https://amzn.to/2SmUl6c. Anyone without a Kindle-compatible device can receive an emailed PDF copy of the 30,000-word ebook by remitting $3.49 on PayPal to paypal@muchnick.net.

The ebook is being published at a moment when the findings of the 2017 FOIA case settlement, which disclosed information from Gibney’s American immigration file, drive a federal government investigation expected to result in the deportation of the 1984 and 1988 Irish Olympic head coach. Over the years there have been repeated campaigns to seek his extradition back to Ireland for trial on revived old sexual assault charges as well as on newly emerging ones; a member of the principal house of Ireland’s legislature, Maureen O’Sullivan, has been spearheading the latest campaign since 2015. A 1998 Irish government investigation of widespread abuses in Irish swimming, chaired by Justice Roderick Murphy, had concluded thatGibney’s accusers”were vindicated” by the accumulated evidence of the national police.

Gibney moved to the United States in 1995, the year after a controversial procedural ruling by the Irish Supreme Court quashed his 27-count indictment for indecent carnal knowledge of minors. The George Gibney Chronicles examines the legal status of a connecting crime on American soil: Gibney’s rape and impregnation of a 17-year-old girl in Tampa, Florida, in 1991 while on a training trip with his Trojans swim team from Dublin’s Newpark Comprehensive School.

Calling 2019 “the year of reckoning,” Muchnick writes in the introduction that American government sources say the climax of Gibney’s unusual immigration scenario is at hand. In 2010 Gibney was denied U.S. citizenship because he concealed from his application his Irish criminal indictment. He was not removed from the country, however, and U.S. District Court Senior Judge Charles R. Breyer, in his 2016 FOIA decision in Muchnick’s favor, called the government’sinaction curious. Breyer also cited the author’s suspicion “that the American Swimming Coaches Association greased the wheels for Gibney’s relocation.”

Muchnick is the author of three books, six previous ebooks, and hundreds of major magazine and newspaper articles, including a New York Times Magazine cover story. He has been interviewed on forums as diverse as National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross and The O’Reilly Factor on Fox News. The late author, commentator, and Sports Illustrated writer Frank Deford said, “Irv Muchnick produces magnificent investigative journalism…. He writes with passion and savage humor.” For the full bio at his website, see https://concussioninc.net/?page_id=2.

Media requests: media@muchnick.net