I am pretty sure I HAVE seen at least one case of a USEF member punished for “aiding and abetting” a suspended USEF member. But that was pre-SafeSport (I think it was someone suspended for the insurance scandal), and it was for behavior AT a USEF show.
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This is the big problem for USEF here. There are still riders training with him and I’m some of them have pull at USEF. I’m just not sure if USEF has any bite to back up the bark.
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USEF replied to my email this morning. They wrote “thank you for reporting this” and said that they will look into it.
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Can someone provide the info on where it states no aiding and abetting? Again, these clinics dont’ have anything to do with USEF other than Carolyn Krome is a member and there may or may not have had USEF members in attendance. USEF has no jurisdiction of nonUSEF activities. . Believe it or not there are plenty of people who ride who aren’t members of USEF.
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A suspension/ban applies to yourself, your horses, and any horse-related businesses you have. It’s in the USEF SafeSport Policy brochure on page 15, under Enforcement. The aiding and abetting clauses basically say anyone who is suspended or banned cannot be employed as an instructor/coach by any USEF member or affiliated with any of the organizations or affiliates of the USEF/USOC or maintain any ownership or interest in such organizations. In short, nobody is supposed to have anything to do with suspended/banned individuals, their horses, or their business interests, in any way whatsoever.
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USEF Safe Sport policy pages 8-9 Aiding and Abetting.
"Aiding and Abetting occurs when one aids, assists, facilitates, promotes, or encourages the commission of Prohibited Conduct by a Participant, including but not limited to, knowingly:
- <Snip>
- Allowing any person who has been identified as suspended or otherwise ineligible by USEF to coach or instruct Participants;
…"
I’m pretty skeptical that there wasn’t at least one person at that clinic that was a USEF member. The organizer certainly didn’t include any warning in their materials advising USEF members not to participate.
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Thanks I knew I’d seen it but couldn’t remember where.
LexnVa - a USEF ban applies to USEF sanctioned competitions and activities only… And while you all havr
provided the aiding and abetting definitions they are as they apply to Participants which under the Safe
Sport policy is:
Participant - Any individual who: (a) currently is, or was at the time of a possible Safe Sport violation, within the governance or disciplinary jurisdiction of USEF or who is seeking to be within the governance
or disciplinary jurisdiction of USEF (e.g., through application for membership, license holder, employee), (b) is an Athlete or USEF Designee, or © a participant or attendee of a USEF Licensed Competition or sanctioned ev, including team staff, medical or paramedical personnel, administrator, official, groom, or other athlete support personnel, employee, or volunteer. The term USEF Participant and Participant are used interchangeably throughout this policy.
Again this clinic does not fall under the governance or jurisdiction of USEF therefore I don’t see how the organizers fall under aiding and abetting.
frankly I think having the clinic was in poor taste but there’s no usef violation
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SafeSport policy is that ANY banned individual is forbidden from providing coaching or instructing services to Participants. Any Participant who facilitates that is guilty of aiding and abetting, per the policy. In the SafeSport USEF rules, a Participant is defined as ANYONE who falls (or at any time did fall) under the jurisdiction of the USEF, such as all individuals with a USEF membership or position or official designation. In this case, it means the person who put on the clinic/owns the farm and ALL USEF members/officials who attended the clinic, and the banned USEF member and official George Hayes Morris. It is a clear-cut case of aiding and abetting. If it wasn’t, Diane Carney and a lot of others would have held their GM clinics without any reservations and they wouldn’t be moaning about getting GM’s ban over-turned, so they could go back to making money off the old man’s bad manners and lunacy.
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I would argue that many of you are reading the “aiding and abetting” policy too broadly. The policy states: “Aiding and Abetting occurs when one aids, assists, facilitates, promotes, or encourages the commission of Prohibited Conduct by a Participant, including but not limited to, knowingly … Allowing any person who has been identified as suspended or otherwise ineligible by USEF to coach or instruct Participants.”
My read is that Prohibited Conduct must occur first and then those that engaged in certain activities that “aid and abet” the actual malfeasor in the commision of such Prohibited Conduct would also be culpable.
In your example, the person who put on the clinic/owns the farm, etc., might be culpable ONLY IF bad things happened at their clinic. Or in other words, persons can put on such clinics with banned persons, but they may be held responsible if bad things happen.
With this reading, which is consistent with the criminal definition of “aiding and abetting,” there must be an underlying crime (or in this case Prohibited Conduct) for there to be “aiding and abetting.”
Of course, anyone contemplating hosting a clinic with a banned person should consult their own legal counsel and possibly seek a prior ruling from Safe Sport regarding the proper interpretation of their rule.
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The very act of organizing and holding the clinic is the PROHIBITED CONDUCT, by the written rule. GM is PROHIBITED by the SafeSport/USEF code from performing the actions of a coach or instructor, as a result of his SafeSport/USEF ban. By holding a George Morris clinic at Persimmon Tree Farm/K2 Show Stables, George Hayes Morris (and his business interests, which are PROHIBITED by SafeSport/USEF) is AIDED and ABETTED by Ken Krome and Carolyn Krome - who are USEF/SafeSport PARTICIPANTS that must abide by the SafeSport code - to give instructional teachings to paying customers, which is PROHIBITED CONDUCT. Some or all of the clinic attendees are USEF members, so any PARTICIPANTS who attend the clinic are AIDING and ABETTING George Hayes Morris in the act of performing instructional duties as a clinician and AIDING and ABETTING Ken Krome and Carolyn Krome by paying money to Persimmon Tree Farm/K2 Show Stables, who then pays George Hayes Morris for performing his duties as an clinician.
Here are the relevant SafeSport clauses under Aiding and Abetting:
Aiding and Abetting occurs when one aids, assists, facilitates, promotes, or encourages the commission of Prohibited Conduct by a Participant, including but not limited to, knowingly:
Allowing any person who has been identified as suspended or otherwise ineligible by USEF to coach or instruct Participants. (Teaching and instructing is what George Hayes Morris is prohibited from doing and what Ken Krome and Carolyn Krome helped him to do, by holding a George Morris Clinic.)
Allowing any person to violate the terms of their suspension or any other sanctions imposed by USEF. (That’s double-down talk!)
Coincidentally, the Persimmon Tree Farm website has been taken offline after this George Morris clinic came to the attention of the USEF. Coincidence?
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Show me the express language in Safe Sport or the USEF rules supporting this statement.
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Before I ask my question - I am going to say that I do not agree with this stable holding this clinic. I am not sticking up for the bad guy. I am simply asking a question.
@LexInVA Do the rules say that suspended people are not allowed to teach or train anyone or anything or do they say they are not allowed to teach or train at any USEF function?
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I understand that under the Safesport rules a suspended gymnastics coach could not, for instance, sign his gym over to his wife as official owner and continue teaching there. Safesport is larger than the USEF and applies to all sports, even if the clients aren’t in a competition pipeline.
h is an act of Congress, passed under pressure and direction from the International Olympic Committee following some well publicized horrors in non equestrian children’s sports.
I am not sure how it handles the traveling clinician model as that isn’t as common in other sports. I suppose they could suspend the hosts and participants?
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Sorry, I disagree. “Prohibited Conduct” is an expressly defined term in Safe Sport and is separate and distinct from activities from which a banned person is prohibited from undertaking. According to Safe Sport (https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/YXj0R68pxq0/safe-sport-policy, page 4), Prohibited Conduct is defined as: [LIST=1]
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Sorry, I disagree. You are conflating what a banned person is prohibited from doing with the term “Prohibited Conduct” which is a separate expressly defined term in Safe Sport. According to Safe Sport (Safe Sport Policy, page 4) and “by written rule,” Prohibited Conduct is defined as: [LIST=1]
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Anyone who is banned or suspended is not allowed to teach or instruct any members of the USEF or associated discipline organizations (PARTICIPANTS) or hold any position or affiliation with the USEF or any of the associated discipline organizations. Anyone (PARTICIPANTS) with membership or association with the USEF and any of the associated discipline organizations (USEA, USDF, USHJA, etc.) is prohibited from doing business or being associated in a business or act in a proxy capacity with suspended or banned individuals and their horses/businesses. This is why SafeSport issues NO CONTACT directives and has the Aiding and Abetting clauses, intended to keep people who are sanctioned from using others to act in their interest or on their behalf. By USEF and SafeSport rules, Ken Krome and Carolyn Krome are PROHIBITED from having anything to do with George Morris, as far as their business and his own is concerned, but they can freely socially associate with him, away from their business interests.
That’s why AFE wants the GM ban over-turned, so he and his friends can go back to making mattress money off of his regularly scheduled high-turnout clinics and expensive private instruction, which he is now PROHIBITED from doing, as he can only do business with unaffiliated people, which means no well-paying and prestigious clients or any clinics tied to people like Diane Carney. After the ban, he’s more or less been relegated to the lowest level of “Backyard Barn” instructor, which means he can’t sustain the “wannabe wealthy” lifestyle that he’s had for years and why he’s been trying to sell his Wellington residence for the better part of a decade, since he clearly knew that he’d probably get taken to the woodshed at some point, as soon as SafeSport came into existence. If he stays in NJ at his long-time residence, with the support of people in that region that he’s known and been associated with for his entire professional career, and get away with private clinics and instructions, especially if he gets paid in cash.
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Please cite (or provide) the actual language of the rules/policy, not your interpretation or summarization.
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LexInVa’s reading is correct. Whatever you think of the sanction, the intent of SafeSport actions is not to prevent participation and coaching at shows, it’s to prevent all contact in training as well of coaches who have behaved unethically towards their students.
Don’t confuse USEF rules, and for example, sanctions around cheating or doping, with what we are talking about here.
One way to better understand this is to put yourself into a different sport - figure skating or gymnastics or swimming, for example. The conduct SafeSport was designed to stop was NOT happening at competitions. It was happening in training, and sometimes at very grassroots levels, like a child’s first gymnastics coach, and then that person would just disappear and move from gym to gym with no one the wiser about their activity. Gyms, skating rinks, and competitive swimming venues tend to be members of their NGB (not just the people running them) and the addition of SafeSport is meant to obligate them to check the SafeSport lists and not allow banned individuals to coach there. If someone like Richard Callahan is coaching skaters day to day it doesn’t matter for their safety if he doesn’t come to the competition. Having the ability to sanction a rink that allows him to instruct, or to also block his athletes from participating, is the only way to stop him from continuing.
The comment that clinics are not common in other sports doesn’t quite square with what I know - training camps and other short term opportunities to work with elite coaches are a thing in most sports one way or another. Equestrian didn’t invent that.
If an insurance policy was written for this event, I’m surprised that the insurance company allowed it.
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Then either or both of you should be able to cite the language directly from the Safe Sport rules supporting your position.
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https://www.usef.org/forms-pubs/YXj0…e-sport-policy
D. AIDING AND ABETTING Aiding and Abetting occurs when one aids, assists, facilitates, promotes, or encourages the commission of Prohibited Conduct by a Participant, including but not limited to, knowingly:
- Allowing any person who has been identified as suspended or otherwise USEF.ORG EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2020 || 9 ineligible by USEF to be in any way associated with or employed by an organization affiliated with or holding itself out as affiliated with USEF, an NGB, LAO, the USOPC or the Olympic & Paralympic Movement;
- Allowing any person who has been identified as suspended or otherwise ineligible by USEF to coach or instruct Participants;
- Allowing any person who has been identified as ineligible by USEF to have ownership interest in a facility, an organization, or its related entities, if that facility/organization/related entity is affiliated with or holds itself out as affiliated with an NGB, LAO, USOPC or the Olympic & Paralympic Movement.
- Providing any coaching-related advice or service to an Athlete who has been identified as suspended or otherwise ineligible by USEF.
- Allowing any person to violate the terms of their suspension or any other sanctions imposed by USEF.
In addition, a Participant also violates this Policy if someone acts on behalf of the Participant to engage in Aiding or Abetting, or if the guardian, family member, or Advisor of a Participant, including Minor Participants, engages in Aiding or Abetting.
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