Soooooo…on the basis of my alter name (which, btw, goes all the way back to the original USDF forum and then the UDBB and then the Booger Board and then here), you decided I must be ignorant or uninformed? Anyhoo, I was responding to those who were measuring the girl’s guilt or innocense by her parent’s response or non response (on the little information that is public) and stating that you can’t judge anything by the parents’ response (or nonresponse)–not them, the girl’s story, what actually happened, or the price of tea in china. Based on statistics alone, the girl is unlikely to have made up the story and without facts to the contrary (a la Amber Heard trial where there were facts to the contrary), I am likely to believe her. As for Barisone, very familiar and watched the trial, but I did not have the TIME to read all of the many many many many many many voluminous threads on the topic and the fights with a number of sock puppets so I don’t know who said what about whom. From the little I read of your posts, you and I probably agree on the substance. But please don’t ever tell me to shut up again.
No. I did not assume you were ignorant or uninformed. I assumed you did not witness a certain poster’s behavior.
Okay then we agree and I didn’t read your response correctly, which I already apologized for.
I never told you to shut up. I told you I don’t need help interpreting the motives or meaning behind the word salad of a specific poster. Which, again, I have apologized for. I agree you and I probably agree on a lot. And I have already said why I came into this with some bias - based on my own experiences, and the posts here on past threads.
Edited: the, not me he.
ETA for a second time: if you didn’t read the threads here, you have no idea what I am talking about, doesn’t matter if you watched the trial.
Think about what you’re saying. A bottle of wine in the refrigerator, or a bottle of gin in a cabinet would make millions of parents negligent, mine included.
Why ? These are allegations. Nothing has been proven yet. Ben has been competing for years, first in jumpers, then dressage. The plaintiff has also had years to make her case, and so far SafeSport hasn’t made a decision yet.
And if Ben is found not guilty, will you understand why Dover supported him ?
I have seen zero posts that assess the likely truth or veracity of the girl’s accusation of rape on the basis of her parents response or non response.
False accusations of rape are extremely rare, and, just as in other cases, it is most likely that she is telling the truth. Obviously.
Leave aside the rape allegation for a moment. Consider the charge of negligent supervision against the senior Ebelings and the business. If none of the adults were informed by the girl of the sexual abuse, then both sets of parents had the same set of information that two teenagers had gone off to an avocado grove and done some underage drinking. No one knew about anything worse.
Knowing about that, and not knowing about any sexual abuse or sex of any kind, the Ebelings said, about the underage drinking, “kids will be kids”. The parents of the girl permitted her to remaining training there for additional months. Given that she remained in training there for “months”, I’m saying that it appears the girls parents were not overly alarmed about the supervision lapse they had knowledge of: the drinking. Why should the Ebeling parents be sued for negligent supervision on the basis of the underage drinking, if the girls parents did not pull her out when they learned about the underage drinking?
It appears that the facility was also the Ebeling family home, so BE lived there. What would appropriate supervision by the Ebelings have looked like that would have prevented two teenagers having sex? If you’re running a training facility with a dozen minor clients, what rules would you put in place that would prevent two teenagers from having sex of any form?
I don’t think anyone has said the veracity if the girl’s rape accusation is put into doubt by anything her parents did or didn’t do on April 17. There is a fair amount of “pushing back” against that idea, but it’s a straw man.
You assumed she had not witnessed a certain other poster’s behavior on some other threads? Why does that matter for your response to her on this thread?
Re bolded: you said “We don’t need your help”. I also would have interpreted that as telling her not to post.
Re second bolded: I can understand the high emotion you bring due to being a victim of sexual assault yourself. But importing your “bias” from other threads is not helpful.
They’re not being sued on the basis of the drinking, but because they allegedly knew or should have known of their son’s propensity to abuse minors. See para 26 of the complaint: “Defendants were aware, or should have been aware, of Defendant [BE’s] propensity to groom, engage in inappropriate conduct, and/or sexually assault minors at the Acres facility. Defendants were aware, or should have been aware, of the actual sexual assault of minors occurring at the Acres. Despite such knowledge, Defendants did nothing to prevent or stop this grooming abuse . . ."
Edit: oops, bad link - oh well!
It is not true that “SafeSport has said they’ve found additional victims”.
SafeSport has said
- they do investigate reports of sexual abuse by minors as a general policy
- they declined to confirm that there was or is an investigation regarding BE.
SafeSport investigations are confidential. If and when there is a sanction, the sanction will be announced. It is not clear whether SafeSport has completed any investigation prompted by JDs report. All that is known is that no sanctions have been issued at the point.
Oh, OK. That’s clears it up. If the Ebelings knew or should have known of their son’s propensity for grooming and sexual abuse, then, yes, obviously, they would be negligent for permitting him to socialize and interact with anyone on the property.
In that case, the girl’s parent’s not responding to the known drinking episode is irrelevant, if the basis of the negligence claim is that the Ebelings knew or should have known of “the actual sexual assault of minors occurring at the Acres”.
Well, the parents’ response is irrelevant in any event to the defendants’ liability, from a legal standpoint.
Your previous post saying the basis for the negligent supervision claim was that the senior Ebelings knew or should have known about their son’s propensity for grooming or abuse cleared this up for me. Thank you.
If the negligence claim was based on the laxity on permitting underage drinking, then I would have thought that testimony from other clients and other clients’ parents, not just her parents, regarding underage drinking or other shenanigans would be relevant as testimony on the negligent supervision claim.
OTOH, If the basis is that the Ebelings should have known about grooming behavior or sex abuse occurring at the facility prior to what was experienced by JD, as I now read it, then perhaps they’ll seek testimony on that behavior from other clients. But in that case, I agree that her parents’ response to knowing about the drinking is irrelevant.
I will not understand why Dover took such a strong stance here and in the George Morris case BEFORE any type of official judgement was rendered by declaring they were without doubt innocent when he knew no such thing.
There is nothing wrong with him offering support and saying the allegations don’t fit with the caring, dedicated rider he’s worked with for years, or something of that nature. But to categorically state he’s innocent is premature at this point.
What I think rubs many people the wrong way is Dover’s implied victim shaming and excusing wrongdoing. With George Morris he claimed something along the lines of we shouldn’t judge him by today’s standards when that behaviour was acceptable 30 or 40 years ago in the gay community. It wasn’t. He also seemed to cast doubt on victims’ claims just because his husband wasn’t propositioned by Morris when he worked there as a young man.
In the Ebeling case Dover claims the accuser is “weaponizing SafeSport” for “revenge.” Making up a false accusation is statistically unlikely, but more importantly none of us have enough information to know if the claims are valid or not. Not even Robert Dover, who claims to have super special insider knowledge about the case which the rest of us aren’t privy to.
I just think it would be more prudent for someone so closely involved with youth in our sport to take a more diplomatic approach to public statements while a case is still being investigated / going before the court.
Appropriate supervision of minor children in the care and control of their trainer while at the barn would include making sure they are supervised by a responsible adult while on the property. This would be particularly important if the parents were aware, as the suit alleges, that someone in the property had a history of inappropriate conduct with minors.
The response of Jane’s parents isn’t relevant, period, whether or not the Ebelings were aware of prior instances of inappropriate conduct.
Re bolded: I 100% agree with that as a general statement.
But what, specifically, is the exact nature of the supervision that is required to be non negligent? When I took lessons in that age bracket, the supervision would not have prevented me from “interacting” with another student out of the eyesight of the adults, whether innocently or otherwise.
Is permitting a minor client out of the eyesight of a responsible adult enough for the supervision to be negligent? What barn anywhere would meet that standard?
OTOH, if the Ebeling parents knew or should have known that a particular student, their son or not, had a prior pattern of grooming or sex abuse, it was absolutely negligent of them to permit minors, or even adults, to be exposed to that behavior.
No. Hard no. Regardless of the outcome between JD and BE, RD has shown his true colors multiple times (as other people on this thread have pointed out) and because of that, I don’t believe he should be as heavily involved with the youth and young adult programs. Multiple people tried to have thoughtful conversations with him on his PUBLIC Facebook profile and his responses were disappointing to say the least.
In you read the civil suit complaint, Section 33, it says that during its investigation, SafeSport discovered “allegations of additional sexual misconduct” by BE.
Granted, they are “allegations” not actual additional victims (as far as we know). But I believe that’s where the notion of a history of misconduct with regards to BE may be coming from.
You seem oddly determined that the Ebelings’ actions (or lack of action) couldn’t have contributed to this situation. Why? It’s very similar and yet the opposite of how determined you are that the actions of a certain female in another high profile legal case couldn’t have contributed to her situation.
Why not just accept that it’s possible they were negligent in their supervision, and that we won’t know more until if and when the case goes to trial.
Moving on from the other BS, what is interesting, from a legal perspecitive, is whether the parents would be held responsible for the acts of their minor child against another minor. The law is all over the map on this, from a state by state basis, however it does depend on the facts (Did the parents assume responsibility for the other minor child? Did they know that their minor child was a perp? Should they have known that their minor child was a perp? Etc, etc. etc.). Here’s a good read: https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/juvenile-law/parents-responsibility-for-their-childs-actions.html
It should always be innocent until proven guilty, however vis-a-vis RD’s public statements–eh, someone in a position of being a youth coach should not be taking a public position here, especially one that is contrary to the potential victim. They should be letting the wheels of justice turn and then take a position after a verdict is read (if at all). So for that, I say, bad judgement on RD’s part–even if he is ultimately correct. If I had a child who could potentially participate in a national youth forum run by RD, after his statements (which are consistently in favor of accused alleged perps) I’d probably not let her or him go because I don’t think s/he would be completely safe due to these public views. RD is not doing our national program any favors by airing personal preferences.
