New York Times on George Gibney

by Irvin Muchnick

Jumping off from last year’s George Gibney podcast by Ireland’s Second Captains in association with the BBC, the New York Times has weighed in. “True-Crime Podcast Puts Spolight on Irish Coach Accused of Abuse,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/world/europe/ireland-george-gibney.html.

It’s a useful piece of Gibney on a 1,200-word postage stamp. Let’s see if the story spreads to any other American media outlets and whether the coverage catalyzes action by U.S. government and Olympic players as the federal grand jury investigation of USA Swiimming continues to play out.

The Times cites Irish journalist Justine McCarthy’s decade-old book Deep Deception. The article does not mention the Irish government’s 1998 Murphy inquiry.

The Times quotes U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer in 2016, during my Freedom of Information Act case against the Department of Homeland Security, which revealed the government’s inaction after Gibney failed to attain citizenship in 2010 when his application withheld the fact that he had been indicted in Ireland in 1993 on 27 counts of indecent carnal knowledge of underage swimmers in his tutelage. “I have to assume that if somebody has been charged with the types of offenses that Mr. Gibney has been charged with, the United States, absent other circumstances, would not grant a visa. We’re not a refuge for pedophiles,” Judge Breyer said.

The Times does not add that in the BBC podcast, Gibney’s Florida-based former assistant coach, Peter Banks, a director of the American Swimming Coaches Association at the time of the approval of Gibney’s diversity lottery visa in the early 1990s, engineered the redacted swimming coaching job offer letter that is part of his immigration file.

And the Times fails to note that, extradition back to Ireland or not, Gibney’s rape and impregnation of a 17-year-old swimmer in 1991, during a training trip to Tampa by his Irish team, remains prosecutable by the state attorney there.

Podcast producer Mark Horgan told the Times that the Gibney story was “one of those black moments in Irish history – and there were many of them – where the Irish courts mirrored Irish society in not knowing how to deal with historic child abuse.”

The latest Gibney media boomlet follows last week’s release of an Irish government report acknowledging an estimated 9,000 deaths and widespread abuses at religious institutions for unwed mothers and their babies.

Writing in Ireland’s Broadsheet, Eamonn Kelly commented:

“As Una Mullaly pointed out in her article in the Irish Times, when ‘society’ is to blame, no one is to blame, thus letting off the hook the entire establishment structure, which still exists, albeit in relatively truncated form. If it changed, when did it change? When Micheál Martin claims that ‘society‘ did this, what he really means is that today’s establishment and their historical counterparts are not responsible.”

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CONCUSSION INC.’S FULL SERIES ON WHERE IS GEORGE GIBNEY?

“George Gibney Didn’t Vanish (full text from the Irish news site Broadsheet),” August 27, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14564

“No, Britain’s Guardian Newspaper — I Didn’t ‘Try Unsuccessfully to Have George Gibney Deported From the United States.’ Also, There’s No Past Tense About It.,” September 9, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14576

“George Gibney’s Family and Friends in High Places: Still the Elephant in the Room of Anglo-Irish Media Coverage of the ‘Vanished’ Sex Criminal Irish Olympic Swimming Coach,” September 13, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14585

“Anglo-Irish Media’s George Gibney Stench Gets Worse: Celebrated Editor of Irish Times Was Father of Supreme Court Justice Who Helped Gibney Escape Justice (Also, of Course, Father of Gibney’s Lawyer),” September 20, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14609

“When George Gibney Lived in Colorado (And Even Coached Swimming There), Two Suburban Denver Police Departments Learned All About Him. They Kicked the Can Down the Road.,” September 27, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14614

“‘Where Is George Gibney?’ Podcast Probably Won’t Explain His Vulnerability to American Criminal Charges in His 1991 Rape and Impregnation of a 17-Year-Old Irish Swimmer in Tampa — So We Will,” September 30, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14626

“Not Making Waves” (full text from Ireland’s Broadsheet), October 6, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14638

“‘Where Is George Gibney?’ How About ‘Where Is Peter Banks?'”, October 7, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14642

“Mark Horgan BBC Podcast Nails George Gibney Cohort Peter Banks For the 1993 Job Offer Letter That Enabled the Rapist Irish Olympic Coach’s U.S. Visa,” October 8, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14649

“Let’s Start Cataloging the Open Questions Left by the BBC’s Exposure of Peter Banks As an Architect of George Gibney’s Flight From Ireland to the U.S.,” October 9, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14654

“‘Where Is George Gibney?’ Podcast Delivers a Substance-Free Climax,” October 21, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14663

“BBC’s ‘Where Is George Gibney?’ Podcast Dribbles Down, Ignoring Major Questions,” November 23, 2020, https://concussioninc.net/?p=14681

• “Why Is George Gibney — No. 1 At-Large Pedophile in Global Sports — Living in Florida? And Who Sponsored His Green Card?”, January 27, 2015, https://concussioninc.net/?p=9797
• George Gibney: Rapist Former Irish National Swim Coach, and His 20+ Year American Odyssey: Comprehensive Headline Links … https://concussioninc.net/?p=10942
• 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 Continents — order the ebook at Amazon Kindle, https://www.amazon.com/George-Gibney-Chronicles-Establishments-Governments-ebook/dp/B07NZ6S3PJ, or get an emailed PDF copy by remitting US $3.49 via PayPal to paypal@muchnick.net