US Ski and Snowboard former players has filed a lawsuit against former coach Peter Foley for sex trafficking and harassment.
Three former board team players
The national federation, former CEO Gail “Tiger” Shaw and the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee are also named in the lawsuit, alleging that Foley, Shaw and the sports organizations engaged in repeated acts of sexual misconduct. I had conspired to engage, enable and conceal.
Rosey Fletcher of the United States (Photo by Stephen Munday/Getty Images)
Another former national team contender is three-time Olympian Rosie Fletcher, 2010 Olympian Kalan Chaitlak-Sifsov and Erin O’Malley. They claim that Foley used his position to “coerce sexual acts through coercion, manipulation, emotional abuse, intimidation and retaliation,” according to the lawsuit filed last Thursday in Los Angeles.
“We are aware of the lawsuits that have been filed,” said a spokesperson for US Ski & Snowboard. U.S. Ski and Snowboard has not yet received any complaints about this nor had an opportunity to review it.
The USOPC also had not received any complaints as of Thursday and would not comment “on any specific details at this time,” though a spokeswoman said the organization “takes every allegation of abuse very seriously.”
The lawsuit comes after three former athletes and a former USSS employee accused Foley of sexual misconduct last March. Foley is already under investigation for sexual misconduct allegations that occurred during the Olympics in February
Fletcher claims in the lawsuit that Foley sexually assaulted her at a U.S. team camp when she was 19. O’Malley says she was “sexually assaulted and harassed by Foley at USSS- and USOPC-sponsored competitions, taking advantage of her unequal power,” along with mental and verbal abuse. It started when she was just 15 years old.
“Had USSS taken the safety of its youth players and employees seriously, Foley’s behavior could have been prevented,” the lawsuit states. “Instead, for nearly twenty years, USSS coaches and executives enabled, refused to act, and helped cover up Foley’s behavior,
Chythlook-Sifsof said in a series of Instagram posts during the Beijing Olympics that Foley had “taken nude photos of female athletes for over a decade” and made sexually explicit comments about her to another woman in 2014. was
Sex trafficking is generally understood as the arrangement of sex for money, which legally can mean the exchange of sex for “anything of value,” said Sigrid McCawley, the lead attorney representing the three snowboarders. told the Los Angeles Times.
“You have athletes who are being promised an Olympic position, a spot on the team and significant other valuables in exchange for participating in this abuse and remaining silent,” McCauley said. “This is appropriate for a [sex trafficking] claim.”
