U.S. Anti-Doping Agency Chief Travis Tygart, Who Helped Bury USA Swimming Sex Abuse Cases, Wins USA Swimming’s ‘Athletes’ Appreciation Award’
September 16, 2019Greater Tampa Swim Association’s Todd Hoffmeier Doesn’t Respond to Question of Whether His Sister Is a Source of Anonymous Sexual Misconduct Allegations Against Ryan Gober
September 17, 2019by Irvin Muchnick
Scott Reid of the Orange County Register last week published the first major media report I’ve read of the broad and explosive federal investigations of United States Olympic sports groups that government sources first mentioned to me early this year. See https://www.ocregister.com/2019/09/13/justice-department-irs-investigating-usopc-usa-gymnastics-usa-swimming/.
The Register article is explicit and close to comprehensive — outlining probes on two fronts, including by a grand jury in the Southern District of New York. Clearly, the federal investigations encompass both the fallout of the scandals of Larry Nassar, the molester USA Gymnastics doctor, and financial fraud in the operations of USA Swimming’s offshore reinsurance subsidiary. Concussion Inc. first reported in detail on the latter as far back as 2013.
Beginning in 2015, this reporter also undertook an examination of the permanent American residency, since 1994, of former Irish Olympic swim coach George GIbney, who decamped for Colorado, California, and most recently Florida after a controversial Irish Supreme Court decision vacated his indictment there on 27 counts of illicit carnal knowledge of minors.
The new edition of The George Gibney Chronicles, https://www.amazon.com/George-Gibney-Chronicles-Establishments-Governments-ebook/dp/B07NZ6S3PJ, published in July, updates previous content with a new introductory chapter, outlining his role as a leader of a local Catholic church group medical mission in Peru. The ebook explains how Gibney’s chairmanship of the “International Peru Eye Clinic Foundation” coincided with the period when a controversial Peruvian-based Catholic sect, Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, was establishing a U.S. presence with the support of successive archbishops of the Archdiocese of Denver.
What remains to be seen is whether the investigations outlined by the Orange County Register constitute the climactic U.S. government actions in the Gibney case that I have predicted.