Accuses - Bad Sporters https://www.badsporters.com News Blogging About Athletes Being Caught Up Fri, 24 Jan 2020 23:35:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.6.2 Ex-coach charged in admissions scandal accuses UCLA of admitting unqualified athletes https://www.badsporters.com/2020/01/24/ex-coach-charged-in-admissions-scandal-accuses-ucla-of-admitting-unqualified-athletes/ https://www.badsporters.com/2020/01/24/ex-coach-charged-in-admissions-scandal-accuses-ucla-of-admitting-unqualified-athletes/#respond Fri, 24 Jan 2020 23:35:27 +0000 https://www.badsporters.com/?p=5170 Jorge Salcedo, the former UCLA men’s soccer coach charged in the college admissions scandal, accused the school of using athlete admissions “as a vehicle to raise funds” in a motion filed by his attorneys in U.S. District Court in Boston. The motion filed late Thursday seeks authorization to subpoena a wide variety of documents from […]

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Jorge Salcedo, the former UCLA men’s soccer coach charged in the college admissions scandal, accused the school of using athlete admissions “as a vehicle to raise funds” in a motion filed by his attorneys in U.S. District Court in Boston.

The motion filed late Thursday seeks authorization to subpoena a wide variety of documents from UCLA and the University of California.

“UCLA’s own internal documents reveal that, for many years, its Athletic Department has facilitated the admission of unqualified applicants — students who do not meet UCLA’s rigorous academic or athletics standards — through the student-athlete admissions process in exchange for huge ‘donations’ by the students’ wealthy parents,” the motion said.

“These documents, which UCLA did not disclose to the government before this prosecution, tell a compelling behind-the-scenes story, one that undermines the Superseding Indictment’s narrative by definitely proving that UCLA is not a victim of a fraud scheme,” it said.

The motion alleged, as well, that UCLA has admitted non-athletes as sports recruits to help boost team grade-point averages. No names or other specifics were provided.

Salcedo resigned in March after being arrested by FBI agents as part of the nationwide investigation into fraudulent college admissions dubbed “Varsity Blues.” Prosecutors alleged the longtime coach accepted $200,000 in bribes from Rick Singer, the scheme’s admitted mastermind, to facilitate the admission of two students to UCLA as soccer recruits though they didn’t play the sport.

Salcedo, the only UCLA coach linked to the investigation, faces five charges, including conspiracy to commit racketeering. He has pleaded not guilty.

A UCLA spokesman didn’t immediately comment on the motion.

The filing by Salcedo’s Boston-based attorneys, Thomas Frongillo and Christina Lindberg, revolves around a confidential investigation UCLA conducted in 2014 into the admissions of two students as athletes. The Times first reported in April details of the probe, which had not been previously disclosed.

The report from the UCLA investigation found that one student was admitted as a recruited track and field athlete, despite having personal-best times that weren’t competitive at the college level, as “quid pro quo” for her parents giving $100,000 to the athletics program. Singer tried to get another student admitted as a water polo player, the report said, though she didn’t play the sport. The college admissions consultant also advised at least two students recruited for the UCLA men’s tennis team, according to the report, despite the school categorizing their athletic ability as “limited.”

The report said the admission of the would-be water polo player was rejected after her lack of experience in the sport was discovered. The motion, however, alleged that UCLA “reinstated its prior decision” to admit the student and that she graduated from UCLA.

The school responded to the report’s findings by disciplining a handful of coaches and banning donations from families of athletic recruits until they enrolled.

“Well before the events regarding Mr. Salcedo are alleged to have occurred, there is compelling and persuasive proof that UCLA -— not Mr. Salcedo — had originated and executed ‘The Student-Athlete Recruitment Scam,’” the motion said. “Immediately following news of the indictment, UCLA feigned shock and outrage about the allegations concerning Mr. Salcedo and defended its student-athlete admissions process as one of the toughest in the country.”

The motion added: “This information was a veritable road map to what the government now calls the ‘Student-Athlete Recruitment Scam.’”

In mid-April, UCLA said in a statement that it had voluntarily shared information about the report with authorities. Two weeks later, Eric Rosen, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston, wrote in an email to Salcedo’s attorneys, which was attached to the motion: “I don’t have the compliance review from UCLA — you’ll have to seek from UCLA.”

A UCLA spokesman said the school provided a copy of the report to authorities in August.

Frongillo, part of Salcedo’s legal team, declined to comment on the motion.

The potential subpoena to UCLA seeks material across 48 categories, including an unredacted copy of the 2014 report, communication from top athletic department officials such as athletic director Dan Guerrero and senior associate athletic director Josh Rebholz, pledge agreements, investigative records and wide-ranging documents about any dealings between Singer and the school.

It also asks for documents connected to the admission of children or relatives of UCLA staffers as recruited athletes. The Times reported in July that a student with no competitive record in gymnastics joined UCLA’s powerhouse team as a recruited athlete in 2016, one of at least 18 students admitted as recruits in recent years who were children of coaches or administrators at the school or had close ties with them.

The second potential subpoena — directed to the University of California — requests five categories of material. They include all communications regarding the 2014 report.

The motion accused UCLA of “stonewalling” efforts by defense attorneys to obtain some of the material through California Public Records Act requests made in April and May by “only producing minimal documents and imposing a litany of objections.”

“It has even tried to hide behind the government’s ‘ongoing criminal investigation’ as an excuse for nonproduction,” the motion said. “Mr. Salcedo’s liberty is at stake. UCLA’s apparent public relations concerns provide no basis for withholding evidence.”

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Student accuses 3 Michigan State basketball players of raping her in 2015 https://www.badsporters.com/2018/04/10/student-accuses-3-michigan-state-basketball-players-of-raping-her-in-2015/ https://www.badsporters.com/2018/04/10/student-accuses-3-michigan-state-basketball-players-of-raping-her-in-2015/#respond Tue, 10 Apr 2018 16:12:28 +0000 http://www.badsporters.com/?p=3457 A sign for Michigan State University is seen near the campus in East Lansing, Mich., in February. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters) A Michigan State University student has accused three prominent Spartans basketball players of raping her in an off-campus apartment in 2015 and said campus counselors discouraged her from reporting the sexual assaults to police, according to a federal lawsuit filed […]

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A sign for Michigan State University is seen near the campus in East Lansing, Mich., in February. (Rebecca Cook/Reuters)

A Michigan State University student has accused three prominent Spartans basketball players of raping her in an off-campus apartment in 2015 and said campus counselors discouraged her from reporting the sexual assaults to police, according to a federal lawsuit filed Monday.

The female student, who was not named in the lawsuit, accused the university of creating “an environment where football and basketball players can sexually assault females without repercussion.”

“MSU has fostered a culture in which female victims are discouraged from reporting sexual assaults when those assaults are perpetrated by male athletes, thus protecting the university, the male athletics programs, and the male athletes at the expense of the female victims.”

The Title IX lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, does not name the three basketball players or the counselors who allegedly deterred the female student from contacting police. University officials could not immediately be reached for comment by The Washington Post. Emily Guerrant, university spokeswoman and vice president, told the Detroit Free Press on Monday the university does not comment on pending litigation

The young woman’s allegations come amid an ongoing sexual assault scandal involving Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics doctor accused by more than 250 girls and women of sexual abuse.

The Michigan attorney general’s office is investigating the role others at the school may have played in crimes committed by Nassar, who is spending the rest of his life in prison. His former boss, the former dean of Michigan State’s school of osteopathic medicine, William Strampel, was arrested late last month on charges of sexually assaulting and harassing four female students and mishandling a sexual assault complaint against Nassar.

A number of university officials, including former president Lou Anna Simon, have resigned in the wake of the scandals.

The university is also under investigation by state lawmakers, Congress and the U.S. Department of Education and has faced a string of sexual assault allegations against football and basketball players in recent years.

The unnamed woman who sued Michigan State on Monday was an 18-year-old freshman student and aspiring sports journalist on the night she was allegedly raped.

On the evening of April 11, 2015, the student and her roommate were at a bar in East Lansing when members of the basketball team walked in, the suit alleges. The team had just returned to campus days earlier after being eliminated from the NCAA tournament by Duke University.

After midnight, one of the players offered to buy the young woman a drink, she said. Because of her interest in sports journalism, she accepted. But at no time during the night did she indicate a “romantic interest” in any of the team members, the lawsuit states.

One of the players then invited her to a party at his apartment, leading her to believe her roommate was also going. The 18-year-old agreed and accepted a ride to the off-campus apartment from two of the players.

Before she left the bar she was already having a hard time holding onto her glass, the lawsuit states, even though “she had not had a lot to drink.”

When she arrived at the apartment, she realized her roommate was not there. “There was no party” the lawsuit stated, “as few people were present.” She became extremely hungry and thirsty and was “feeling discombobulated,” according to the lawsuit. “She tried to send a phone text, but she could not control her thumbs to formulate a text.” She began to wonder if she might have been drugged.

One of the players then pulled her into a bedroom and told her “you are mine for the night.” Feeling uncomfortable, she managed to leave the bedroom and head back to the living room. But another player, who lived in the apartment, later asked her if she wanted to see some of his basketball memorabilia.

She was drinking a glass of water when suddenly “the room went dark,” according to the lawsuit. The basketball player allegedly threw her on the bed, pinning her face down so she could not move. He then allegedly raped her from behind while she cried, unable to move or speak, according to the lawsuit.

Two other players, including the one who earlier said “you are mine for the night,” then allegedly took turns raping her, the lawsuit says. The young woman blacked out and woke up on a couch in the apartment hours later. She called a taxi and went to her dorm room “distraught, traumatized, and crying.”

She went to the campus counseling center the following week, according to the suit. When she told a female counselor that she was raped by three university basketball players, the counselor brought another person into the room with them, according to the lawsuit. It was not clear why, or who the person was.

A counseling staff member told the student she could either file a police report or cope with what happened on her own, according to the lawsuit. But she made the student believe it would not be in her best interest to report the alleged rape, as it would create unwanted anxiety, the lawsuit says.

“If you pursue this, you are going to be swimming with some really big fish,” a staff member told her, according to the lawsuit. The counseling staff at no point encouraged her to seek testing for sexually transmitted disease or pregnancy testing, the lawsuit says, and they did not advise her on how to report the rape to the university’s Office of Institutional Equity. She never learned of her right to ask for a no-contact order to keep the three men away from her dorm, according to the lawsuit.

The woman told ESPN’s Outside the Lines that she did not contact police in 2015 because she and some of her underage friends had used fake IDs to get into the bar the night of the alleged rape. Speaking with ESPN on condition that she not be identified, she said she worried they would be charged with underage drinking, and counseling staff did nothing to ease those concerns.

By October, she had become so “traumatized, depressed, and withdrawn” that she was admitted to an outpatient psychiatric day-program and stopped attending her classes, she said in the lawsuit. Eventually she was forced to withdraw for the semester.

She resumed classes in January 2016 but changed her major, “as her dream of becoming a sports journalist had been destroyed,” the lawsuit said.

“Everyone I was in classes with or working with was just all into sports, like ‘bleed green,’” the student told ESPN’s Outside the Lines. “I’m thinking to myself, ‘If only you could look at them like I have to. If only you knew what it felt like.’”

Her attorney, Karen Truszkowski, told Outside the Lines that her client has not reported the incident to police, but “I cannot say that she’s not ever going to report it.”

The lawsuit follows investigations by both ESPN and the Detroit Free Press that found a string of sexual assault complaints involving Michigan State football and basketball players in recent years and a pattern of inaction and information suppression by university officials.

At least 16 Michigan State football players have been accused of sexual assault or violence against women since Mark Dantonio became head coach in 2007, according to an ESPN investigation. Three former football players pleaded guilty last week to reduced charges in the 2017 sexual assault of a woman in an apartment bathroom.

This is the third time since 2010 that multiple Michigan State basketball players have been accused of raping a woman, according to the Detroit Free Press. Last month, a freshman walk-on basketball player, Brock Washington, was arrested on a misdemeanor assault charge. He had been under investigation for fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct, according to the Free Press.

More from Morning Mix:

Molly Ringwald reckons with ‘The Breakfast Club’ in the #MeToo era

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Indian Table Tennis Player Soumyajit Ghosh Charged in Rape Case, Olympian Accuses of Blackmail Post FIR – Latestly.com https://www.badsporters.com/2018/03/22/indian-table-tennis-player-soumyajit-ghosh-charged-in-rape-case-olympian-accuses-of-blackmail-post-fir-latestly-com/ https://www.badsporters.com/2018/03/22/indian-table-tennis-player-soumyajit-ghosh-charged-in-rape-case-olympian-accuses-of-blackmail-post-fir-latestly-com/#respond Thu, 22 Mar 2018 11:43:26 +0000 http://www.badsporters.com/?p=3090 Table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh has represented India in 2012 and 2016 Olympics (Photo Credits: Soumyajit Ghosh/Facebook) An 18-year-old girl has registered an FIR against Indian table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh accusing him of rape. The victim lodged her complaint at West Bengal’s Barasat Women Police Station stating the 24-year-old Olympian had raped her several […]

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Indian Table Tennis Player Soumyajit Ghosh Charged in Rape Case, Olympian Accuses of Blackmail Post FIR

Table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh has represented India in 2012 and 2016 Olympics (Photo Credits: Soumyajit Ghosh/Facebook)

An 18-year-old girl has registered an FIR against Indian table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh accusing him of rape. The victim lodged her complaint at West Bengal’s Barasat Women Police Station stating the 24-year-old Olympian had raped her several times in last three years on the false pretext of marriage. According to Bengali daily Ebela, the complainant accused Soumyajit Ghosh of forcing her to undergo the abortion after getting her pregnant. The table tennis player who represented the country in 2012 and 2016 Olympics has denied of the rape charge and hit back accusing the girl of blackmailing him for money.

Soumyajit, an Arjuna Awardee was previously engaged to the girl and alleged rape victim. Speaking to the publication, the sportsperson admitted to her being his fiancé and that marriage was on the cards. He said, “I introduced her as my fiance publicly after I received the Arjuna award in 2016. But I got tired of her blackmailing me only for money.”

India’s youngest national table tennis champion Soumyajit who is currently in Germany further revealed the details surrounding his ex-fiancée in a telephonic conversation. He was quoted saying, “For the past one year, she has been taking money from me. I have receipts of more than Rs 1 lakh that I have paid her. I also have the documents to prove that I have borne the expenditure of medical treatment of one of her relatives at a private hospital in Kolkata.”

WATCH: Arjuna awardee table tennis player Soumyajit Ghosh accused of rape by 18-year-old

Soumyajit Ghosh had got into a relationship with the girl in 2014 after interacting with her first on the social media. Meanwhile, the girl has claimed the table tennis player forcibly raped at his flat as well as in Siliguri, his hometown and later promising her to marry in future. She is accusing the player of getting her pregnant and threatening her to get rid of the child by undergoing aborting.

However, one of Gosh’s relatives has denied all the allegations on the athlete, saying all this was done to defame Gosh. “This is a conspiracy to distract Gosh ahead of the upcoming Commonwealth Games and extract money from him through blackmailing,” the relative said speaking to the news agency ANI.

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