by Irvin Muchnick and Tim Joyce
Just moments after we completed the preceding article about multiple-witness reporting to the Fort Lauderdale police of child sexual abuse allegations against swim coach Alex Pussieldi we received from the Police Department a copy of the Special Victims Unit file on Pussieldi that we had requested a little over a week ago.
These new documents can be viewed at http://muchnick.net/lauderdalespecialvictims.pdf.
The most important of the five pages are the final two, which turn out to be less-redacted version of a police record previously provided to us. We are left to guess whether the municipal bureaucracy and lawyers changed their minds and came around to our view that some of the earlier redactions were too extensive or whether another public servant in the records office simply undertook a new, fresh search for documents and independently came to a different conclusion as to the exemptions claimed under public information law.
In either event, this new version of a report by Detective Jeff Jennings (whose affiliation with the Special Victims Unit is no longer whited-out) confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Fort Lauderdale Police Departments knowledge of Alex Pussieldis sexual misconduct was extensive, redundant, and verified.
Here are the highlights:
At two points the report has the notation SEE STATEMENT FOR EXACT WORDING. Of course, we will be seeking that statement.
Among many other things, this report adds to the overwhelming evidence that USA Swimming CEO Chuck Wielgus has lied publicly and repeatedly including under oath to courts in his contention that hidden camera video by coaches was not on the radar screen before 2008. More on that next.
As always, we hope that Congressman George Miller, ranking member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, is paying attention. The stench of Alex Pussieldi goes all the way to Rio ’16 but the aroma of heinous crime and cover-up remains both distinct and ongoing in Fort Lauderdale , Florida.