Maggie’s parents said several times they were told there was an FBI investigation. I don’t believe they were compliant as much as your post makes them think, but they knew who held the power and it wasn’t them. Remember the parents were not able to freely talk to the girls during training and kept getting fed a story. It’s a mess, basically. I feel bad for Maggie but glad she was able to move on.
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“George will say, like most men his or even my age, the 70’s especially were a crazy time and men and women, gay and straight, did crazy things.”- R.D.
Does Dover not realize that the above statement, given the context of G.M.'s behavior, only leads one to wonder about the crazy things G.M. did?
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I keep having to say it, Dover is lost in an intersectional crisis where he believes he’s defending a gay man from attack of a heteronormative culture, but really he is protecting a sexual predator who preferred to target tween boys.
And Dover believes this because it is what he wants to believe, and he is willfully blind to the real crisis in the sport and the voices of survivors.
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One thing for horse sport to think about in the aftermath of the gymnastics investigation was the threat of prosecution of mandatory reporters who failed to report the abuse. I wonder if we even know who in horse sport would be in the role of a mandatory reporter.
It’s even more pressing at the top leadership level of the sport. People who were being paid to run USA Gymnastics and who had access to multiple written reports, by the victims, with specifics, did not report them to LE as required by law. They did push Nassar out of their own organization, but without a word as to why.
This article points out the tendency of people who learn of a problem to report it only to more senior people in the organization, and then leave it up to the organization. Too often the problem ends up caught in a bureaucracy paralyzed by uncertainty and fear of damaging its reputation. Examples of that are gymnastics, Penn St. and Sandusky, and a lot of cases that happen within schools and churches.
https://www.sbsun.com/2018/05/11/if-…-to-report-it/
RD didn’t even acknowledge that those who reported GM and others are human beings with a voice. It reads as if he considers anyone outside of his own elite inner circle as objects. As furnishings and decorations for the masters of the sport. He doesn’t seem interested in what they are saying, or that they should say anything at all. Just that those in the circle of elites shouldn’t be bothered by them.
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Bolding mine. See FAQ on the USEF website Safe Sport section.
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George freely shares a lot of them in his very badly book. Nobody cares what freewheeling sexcapades George, Robert, or anyone else got up to in the heady days of sex, drugs, and disco. Gay, straight, orgies…seriously nobody cares as long as ALL the participants were capable of consent, not coerced in any way (whether physically or with the promise of riding opportunities, etc.) and were of legal age. That’s literally all anyone cares about.
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What is truly appalling is why that statement came out. I don’t think at anytime it was sleeping with minors “crazy things”.
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In the 70’s there was a push to lower the age of consent in many states, particularly those states with large populations of gay men who came together in advocacy groups to push for it, to legitimize and de-stigmatize the sexual relationships that many were having with young gay boys, like Soresi and others would have been doing at the time. It was simply a normalized thing in the gay communities and it continues to this day, to varying degrees, with things like rent-boys who look and act like young teenage boys, in exchange for money and drugs. In NJ, they reduced AOC to 13 in 1979, but it got dumped when it came time to be signed. In Hawaii, a state known as a haven for LGBTQ individuals, it took a long time and a lot of pressure to get the age of consent bumped up to 16, from 14.One of the methods the Internet safety task forces uses for catching potential predators is to use gay social networking/Internet sites to lure men - often across state lines - using a 11-15 year old boy or boys - not actual boys, but fictional ones - as bait, where they are offered up as being consensual and “down for it”. That’s how Kenneth Acebal got caught. In my area, there was a task force that did that for years, to great success, but instead of pretending to be youth, they billed themselves as like-minded and having access to “willing and eager” participants and drugs to sweeten the deal, so men would come from all over the country to the DC area under the auspices of traveling for work or tourism or whatever and get nailed with Federal charges. It worked very well, but the push for acceptance of LGBTQ in the area made it controversial once the local Gay media got wind of it.
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/02/23/d-c-police-target-gay-men-in-online-sting/
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These predators might lurk in the LGBTQ community, but they are not the community, they are taking advantage of a traditionally and statistically vulnerable population and relying on stigma to keep victims quiet. Oh, and dolts like Dover.
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Well, no. There are similar folks taking advantage of young girls. It’s not an LGBTQ thing, it’s a predator thing.
But, I’ll admit that I know of no NAMBLA <shudder> analog.
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that’s exactly my point. They are lurking everywhere. LGBTQ community members, especially minors, are especially vulnerable to being preyed on.
I have also made the point for years now that I think children who desperately want to be around and are drawn to horses are also especially vulnerable to predation.
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Ken A: https://www.ajc.com/news/local/horse-trainer-arrested-for-meth-driving-naked/1qqkuO3PZZxtpAApYSJSZI/
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Sorry - I did misread your post. yes, LGBTQ kids are especially vulenerable.
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Yesterday I was out working for the first time in months (YAY, the lock down is partially really over) and I listened to this pod cast in the car. When I arrived on location I had no energy left. DAMN what a horror story :eek:
For sure things like this is happening on a daily basis within the equestrian sport. Trainers, coaches, stable workers, riders, photographers you name it.
Even so I am not sure if a thing like Safe Sport is the way to go cause I do like a fair trial. I.e. there was a story close to home so to speak which ended up in trial in which the trainer was cleared on all counts.
But… then you listen to stories like this horrific one about Larry Nassar which makes you think taking down some totally innocent trainers as collateral damage on a quest to clean up the sport would be a very small price to pay.
Cause in the case I referred to there obviously was the one boy - now a man - who seriously believed he had been sexually abused by this trainer (yet another Olympic coach actually) at a young age. But the coach was backed up by his own group of top riders, all of them female if I remember things correctly. But that one kid or young - or even older - adult really really is too much :mad:
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Bold mine. I would hope there was more of an investigation (or I’m missing something here) than just taking the word of multiple riders of the opposite sex from the child that felt abused. I think even GM would pass muster if only his female students were interviewed with regard to his (sex-related) behavior.
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I was thinking the same thing. The alleged abuser was not male. So the females can only testify to what they saw when they were there, not when the boy was there when they were not.
@eventingmania The abused can end up really mucked up in personality, into drugs, into prostitution, etc, etc. What you are seeing as not liking in the adult, may be from molestation as a child.
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People actually DID do just this and women like Katie Prudent were adamant that definitely George Morris never forcibly sodomized any minor boys, because they never saw it. Just like Robert Dover was sure because George didnt have sex with his hot hubby when hubby was in his 20s…
Critical thinking is so, so hard for some people, no matter how good they horse sport.
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I’m still fascinated by the lack of out cry from the H/J community. This should be a wake up call that no one actually cares unless your that good. I also still want to know why I “should be careful” with my assumptions about RD’s motivation.
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I have the full court paper somewhere but could not find it to double check.
But as I recall it there were only female riders stepping up as “character witnesses” in this case where the abused was a teenage boy at the time and now a grown man.
In the US I’m thinking Safe Sport would have stepped in and banned this trainer.
The man is actually my former trainer too and I could not witness in either way in regards to sexual abuse even if I wanted to.
Was he a good trainer? Hell yeah, in my point of view one of the best.
Was he abusing anybody? I have no idea. But as I see it where there’s smoke there is usually also a fire. Which is why we need to take these things serious!
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I am continually gobsmacked that people who are defending the accused, or else people like this poster who are not defending them but just considering the SS process, suggest a trial, or a full-on law enforcement investigation.
If a SS investigation finds the accusations credible enough to take action, LE and the prosecutor may well find the same. Do people not realize that the SS process, even if it results in a ban, is far, far kinder to the accused than law enforcement and a prosecutor? That the end result of LE involvement could be prison?
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