Defrocked USA Swimming Olympic Head Coach Mark Schubert Settles Abuse Whistleblower Lawsuit; Case Revealed Schubert’s Spying on Rival Coach

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by Irvin Muchnick and Tim Joyce

 

Former USA Swimming national team coach Mark Schubert has settled the wrongful termination lawsuit by his former assistant at the Golden West Swim Club in California, Dia Rianda. The case, which was filed in 2012, was scheduled to go to trial today. A search of Orange County Superior Court records reveals that a notice of settlement was filed November 13. The settlement terms are not disclosed.

Rianda’s action was one of the most far-reaching in the years-long saga of uncovering USA Swimming sexual abuse and cover-up. A full airing of it in open court would have been close to a “trial of the century” on this subject.

The reasons are many – starting with the fact that Rianda is a wealthy, long-time benefactor of USA Swimming.

In addition, as a close confidante of Schubert’s, she was privy to his and other top swimming officials’ roles in the three-decade cover-up of coach Rick Curl’s abuse of swimmer Kelley Davies. When the dam broke on that story in 2012, after being unofficially known as the sport’s “worst-kept secret,” Curl confessed, and was banned and prosecuted (he is now in Maryland prison), and Congressman George Miller helped set in motion the federal investigations we are reporting.

Schubert’s ouster from the top coaching post in swimming, which preceded Rianda’s lawsuit and led to a six-figure termination package – likely in return for his remaining hush-hush on Curl and others matters – is also historically significant because his brief predecessor as national team chief, Everett Uchiyama, got secretly bounced himself after an old abuse victim of his came forward. And Pat Hogan, a top official under USA Swimming boss Chuck Wielgus, promptly engineered a new job for Uchiyama as aquatics director of the Country Club of Colorado – at a facility just down the road from USA Swimming headquarters, and where the organization frequently held quarterly board meetings.

Rianda v. Schubert is important, finally, for tabloid-tease reasons. Discovery in the lawsuit exposed that Schubert was responsible for the leak to the Washington Post that caused a rival coach, Sean Hutchison, to lose his position of running swimming’s disastrous professional training “excellence center” in Fullerton.

In May of 2013, we published the report, by a private investigator hired by Schubert, which included spy photos establishing a romantic relationship between Hutchison and one of his swimmers, world record holder Arianna Kukors. You can view the document at http://muchnick.net/schubertspyrecord.pdf.

At the time, we whited out the images of and references to Kukors, out of deference to an adult woman in a legitimate relationship with a man. (Subsequently, and in response to the issue of coach “grooming” of non-adult athletes prior to having relationships or getting married to them as adults, USA Swimming passed a rule banning all athlete-coach relationships.) We are not hesitant to publish Kukors’ name today, since she and Hutchison were featured together in a long article in the magazine of the American Swimming Coaches Association.

Here are complete links to Concussion Inc.’s coverage of the Schubert lawsuit:

 

Journalist Tim Joyce With a Blockbuster on Coach Mark Schubert and USA Swimming’s Web of Deceit on Sex Abuse

Published September 17th, 2012

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Read It Now — Swimming Philanthropist Dia Rianda’s Lawsuit Against Olympic Coach Mark Schubert for Wrongful Termination and Retaliation

Published September 17th, 2012

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What Dia Rianda Says About Rapist Swim Coach Rick Curl in Her Lawsuit Against Mark Schubert

Published September 17th, 2012

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WBAL’s Tim Joyce Exposes USA Swimming’s Non-Denial Denial of $625,000 Agreement With Mark Schubert to Cover Up Sex Abuse

Published September 19th, 2012

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Rick Curl, Mark Schubert, Ad’m Dusenbury, and the Sands of Time in Mission Viejo Swimming and Sex Abuse

Published September 20th, 2012

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EXCLUSIVE: Olympic Coach Mark Schubert Helped Spy on World-Record Swimmer and Her Coach — Leaked Relationship Info to Washington Post

Published January 24th, 2013

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Orange County Register: Wife of Olympic Swim Coach Mark Schubert, the Spy Who Hated Me, Works for Private Investigator

Published January 25th, 2013

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Housecleaning Notes on Olympic Swim Coach Mark Schubert, the Spy Who Hated Me

Published January 25th, 2013

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And One More Thing on the Hutchison-Kukors Affair and Olympic Coach Mark Schubert, the Spy Who Hated Me

Published January 25th, 2013

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Lawyer for Olympic Coach Mark Schubert, the Spy Who Hated Me, Lied to Swimming World About Private Investigator. Will Magazine Correct the Record?

Published January 25th, 2013

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Swimming World Magazine Speaks: Olympic Coach Mark Schubert, the Spy Who Hated Me, Lied About Hiring Private Investigator to Follow Ariana Kukors and Sean Hutchison

Published January 26th, 2013

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Orange County Register on How Fired Olympic Swim Coach Mark Schubert’s Associate Bill Jewell Was ‘Cleared’ in Investigation of Inappropriate Behavior at Southern California Clubs

Published March 3rd, 2013

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Bill Jewell Out at Golden West Aquatics

Published March 14th, 2013

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California Community College’s Farcical ‘Investigation’ of Swim Coaches Mark Schubert and Bill Jewell Is a Template for Every Whitewash Institutional Probe — Like the One Now at Utah

Published March 24th, 2013

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New Litigation Twist, Plus Old USA Swimming Inaction, in Whistleblower Dia Rianda’s Dispute With Olympic Coach Mark Schubert

Published April 10th, 2013

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Read It Now — Olympic Coach Mark Schubert’s Private Eye’s Report on the Cohabitation of Rival Coach Sean Hutchison And His Swimmer

Published May 14th, 2013

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Mark Schubert — Who Falsely DENIED Hiring a Private Investigator to Follow Sean Hutchison — Now ASSERTS He Hired P.I. to Track Rapist Rick Curl

Published May 24th, 2013

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Mark Schubert’s Crony, Bill Jewell, Accepts Ban From USA Swimming — Further Vindication for Dia Rianda in Her Wrongful Termination-Cover-Up Lawsuit

Published June 18th, 2013

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Jury Trial Next in Sex Abuse Whistleblower Coach’s Lawsuit Against Former National Olympic Swim Team Coach Mark Schubert

Published September 15th, 2014

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Concussion Inc. - Author Irvin Muchnick