And in this country a forum / social media owner/manager is not responsible for what people post on their forum. So whatever wild unproven accusations are posted here, COTH won’t get in trouble for them.
Just for what it is worth. 
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Going by Paul Valliere and George Morris, apparently hundreds. And unlike those two, Debbie hasn’t been accused of anything.
You are really making big leaps where there are no jumps, fair judy. Jumping shadows is a waste of space & energy, you know. :winkgrin:
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I’d ride with her in a heartbeat!
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I didn’t mean damage to COTH, I meant damage to Debbie. Imagine reading online that people are speculating your husband sexually abused you when you were a child? It’s beyond inappropriate, really. Unless any credible information comes out that she had knowledge of his actions, she deserves to be left out of this discussion.
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But she won’t be. Not here on COTH, not in social media generally.
It won’t be pleasant to be Debbie for … who knows how long, maybe forever. But she isn’t completely alone in this as clearly there are people who support her.
And I personally do believe that it is possible for someone to know nothing about what someone close to them is doing for years and years. There is abundant evidence that this happens all the time. Maybe it takes some willful disbelief and an amazing gift for blindness to things that should be obvious. And while we don’t know what Debbie thinks of all of this, her many years of active disbelief will prepare her to continue her denial, if she wishes.
Jerry Sandusky’s wife Dottie still maintains that he is innocent of all charges. Publicly, anyway. And it wasn’t just his wife who was maintaining ignorance, he was abusing children at the campus athletic facilities, and no one seemed to know there, either. Other than the one report that was sidetracked. Do we give all of the bystanders the benefit of the doubt that they really didn’t know? It would seem that many of these people had a vested interested in denial, Debbie included. But if they didn’t want to know something like that, maybe they really didn’t consciously acknowledge that there must be a problem. It is one of the reasons victims tend to stay silent, because even people who should know aren’t speaking up, so no one seems to be on their side.
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I would place blame on her if she knew or suspected and deliberately looked the other way. Since we don’t have any evidence that that was the case, she gets the benefit of the doubt.
If it were me, I’d leave the guy in a heartbeat. But it’s not me, and I think what she decides to do in terms of her personal life is 100% her business. Whether she dumps him or not, I hope USEF will treat her with the respect she deserves on the basis of her own reputation and career.
Now if she were to do a Kathy Serio and hire Bonnie Navin and Phelps Media to try to undermine SafeSport, that’s the point at which she loses my support.
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Or Susan Hutchinson, which for me personally has been the most devastating blow, watching through my starry eyed west coast childhood eyes as my idol openly and publicly supports these monsters again and again. I have not seen Debbie doing this at all.
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It is not true that no one at Penn State knew what Sandusky was up to. Lots of people knew and covered it up rather than deal with it. That is the scandal.
I have no idea whether DM knew or suspected what RM was up to, and for now I give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she did not.
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You are assuming the accusations against BM happened during his marriage to Debbie ? I haven’t seen that reported anywhere. Where did you read that ?
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Despite what his press release says, I find it incredibly unlikely that he has received a lifetime ban solely for a single incident that occurred before they were married, with no hint or suspicion or concern about more recent events. (They have been married a very long time.) I find it even more unlikely that such a case would not be adjusted on appeal. We’ll see how that turns out.
SafeSport will not release more, and unless a claimant steps forward to talk on or off the record, the details won’t be reported. One reason for that is that in general ages and years are identifying in our sport. OC Register’s “multiple minors under 14 in multiple states” also suggest to me that there are more recent cases, since it seems unlikely to me he was doing much interstate traveling to train in the 1970s (though there was the Arizona circuit at that time).
I’m not a PR professional, but if I were advising people in this situation, I’d stick with just the categorical denial and not mention any timeline. As soon as you say that, it becomes easier to find counterexamples that don’t fit the denial.
Debbie’s situation is complicated, and it will depend on what she knows and believes, all kinds of aspects of their relationship, etc, to decide what is right. None of us can know that for her. She and her husband are both of retirement age and that is an option for one or both of them as well. Again, I’m not a PR professional, but the one move that would lose my personal support is an attack on SafeSport as an organization. I think, if you wish to do so, it’s possible to advocate for someone’s innocence without saying the system is invalid.
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So your answer is Yes. You’re speculating the accusations happened during his marriage to Debbie.
Although Safe Sport won’t release details, an unnamed source with supposed knowledge of the investigation is leaking confidential information to the media,
but we can’t be sure if that information is factual.
We’re back to Square One; we really don’t know what happened, and when.
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But We do. We know that robert McDonald was found permanently ineligible to participate in any sport governed by a national governing body for sport, for sexual misconduct involving minors.
I dont need to know more than that.
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That’s great.
However other people are speculating about the details of the complaint(s) and when they happened.
And again, we don’t know.
People who speculate about the particular details of the sexual assault of children are monsters. Shun them.
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But as the safe sport rep told everyone at the town hall where bonnie navin embarrassed herself, they put down sexual misconduct involving a minor because they can’t put down specifics like forceable sodomy of a minor.
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Poltroon did not speculate on any details but did say that if you believe SS when they say they don’t issue lifetime bans except in very serious cases, as I do, a reasonable inference is that there was more than one incident, and some of the allegations relate to incidents more recent than 1973. We’ve seen the pattern of a BNT in their seventies banned for life, and they or their supporters try to sell a narrative of SS is overreaching based a single incident 45 or 47 years ago. In the case of RG, the head of the Hunter/Jumper federation cryptically leaked the basic fact that there were multiple victims, significantly under the age of consent, but so many people believed the narrative of a single incident 45 years ago, that a group of the victims felt it necessary to reveal their identities and ages at the time of the misconduct. It turned out SS was NOT overreaching. The victims should not have had to reveal their identities in order to lend SS credibility.
He has the right to appeal, and I’m glad he’s using it. I’m not speculating beyond my inference that SS would not have issued a lifetime ban based on a single incident prior to his marriage.
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Yes that was me. My personal OPINION not a fact.
A woman who stands beside a predator is not anyone who should see success IMO. If she supports him then if her business goes down the toilet it would be rightfully so. Again, JMO.
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Its really not that out of left field under the circumstances, maybe Debbie will be triggered to think of how their relationship truly came together.
From the media out there about BM, it does appear he has a pattern with underage girls. It is not a stretch to think DM could have been groomed.
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Anyone who knows anything about child predators knows these things aren’t a one off, and there is a pattern. They don’t stop when someone gets married. Ridiculous notion.
Bury your heads in the sand all you want, plug your ears and yell lalala…the writing is on the wall.
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I posted this in the main SafeSport thread over in the H/J Forum, where we’ve been following along, but as this is also in Dressage, I’ll leave it here. This is the Athletes for Equity newsletter that got emailed out today:
Athletes for Equity in Sport, (AES 501 ©6), is responding to the most recent ruling issued by the U.S. Center for SafeSport, regarding permanent ineligibility status of Bob McDonald, 73, husband of U.S. Technical Advisor of Dressage and Chef d’Equipe, Debbie McDonald. Regardless of what has been said, Bob McDonald was not given a hearing before being announced permanently ineligible.
Athletes for Equity in Sport remains dedicated to and focused on our mission of equity for all participants in the U.S. Center for SafeSport, USOPC, and NGB reporting process.
We continue to address the urgent issue: Reform U.S. Center for SafeSport operational procedures.
We need your help! For more information, to become a member, donor, or volunteer, please visit www.Athletesforequity.org.
Diane Carney
President
Athletes for Equity in Sport
www.AthletesforEquity.org
Related Articles:
[U]U.S. Center of SafeSport Issues Permanent Ban on Bob McDonald, Husband of US Dressage Technical Advisor – PS Dressage
Bob McDonald Requests Independent Arbitration For U.S. Center of SafeSport - PS Dressage[/U]
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