People Attempting to Undermine Safe Sport

[IPEsq]

Truth of the matter is a defense to a defamation claim. So the defendant raising it needs to prove to the relevant standard that what they said/wrote was true.

Other options are that they could claim they never said/wrote what was alleged. And then of course even if something negative/false was said, it would need to have harmed the reputation of the plaintiff for their claim to succeed. One of the classic topics of defamatory speech includes falsehoods of a sexual nature, so then in that context the damage is pretty easy to establish and then you are on to defenses.

[BigMama1]

Heartbreaking and sickening. How can people continue to defend people like this? I don’t care if it happened in 1954, 1974, or yesterday. An adult who would abuse a 13-year-old child should never be allowed to work with children again.

[SolarFlare]

Update: it appears AES has been granted 501 ( c ) (3) non-profit status and is now AERC. Here’s the latest newsletter (it was sent in PNGs not text so I’m uploading those):

[LexInVA]

Am I the only one who noticed the coloring of the logo?

[ladyj79]

@LexInVA

Am I the only one who noticed the coloring of the logo

You mean the play on the olympic rings and/or lgbtq+ rainbow? Cause they’re really for everyone! And elite! And kid rapers!! Hurrah!!

No really, they’re an abomination.

[HorseyGal1]

Totally agree! Their name implies that they are in support of many of the victims; however, they only care about protecting the ones accused who are found guilty. As someone who has been involved in a very extensive cause in the past, AERC fails to realize how much work goes into the case before any names are brought to the public eye. Safesport is here to keep people safe. I would love to ask people from AERC why they think that people who commit crimes should be allowed to offend again.

Statement from AERC “Safesport is being used as a weapon to take out the competition - or your political rival, or your spouse - through false charges”

That is the most ridiculous statement I have ever heard. It deters victims from coming forward… ie not creating a safe environment.

[Jenerationx]

First off, to those complainants that then did not want to participate in arbitration, how is that any different than those that have been victimized by one of these sick people and then don’t want to be victimized again on the stand in court? That does not indicate than someone is “flaky,” just that they’re done being questioned and cross examined over a traumatic experience.

As for the new “AERC” or whatever they want to call themselves… now they want to provide assistance to those going through the SS process, it does not say just for the accused, so I think those that are reporting violations to SS need to contact AERC and see what resources they might provide to the victims. Are they interested in that at all, or just protecting the pedophiles from losing their income?

[Ghazzu]

@Jenerationx

As for the new “AERC” or whatever they want to call themselves… now they want to provide assistance to those going through the SS process, it does not say just for the accused, so I think those that are reporting violations to SS need to contact AERC and see what resources they might provide to the victims. Are they interested in that at all, or just protecting the pedophiles from losing their income?

I’m sure the American Endurance Riding Conference (aka AERC) is going to be absolutely thrilled by the name choice.

[Jenerationx]

Oh wow. Yeah, that’s not something I’d want to be associated with.

[BLBGP]

Is it still only horse folk on their leadership team?

[SolarFlare]

2021 SafeSport code revisions are shown here:

SafeSportCodeRevisions_2021_040121_V2.pdf

[LexInVA]

Adrienne Raymond has been added to the SafeSport list for allegations of abuse, with no locality named by SafeSport. Based on what’s out there, she appears to be a former high-school teacher in the Portland area who was charged with and pled guilty to sexually abusing and sodomizing a boy at her school in the early 2000’s and was also accused of abusing another boy that she had kept around her home, doing house work and such.

[Jenerationx]

Oh yuck! So she picks another job around kids? Beautiful.

[mroades]

They usually do…access is everything

[LexInVA]

It’s my understanding that she is involved in Dressage, a discipline in which there are few underage competitors, but she does operate a training facility and is affiliated with several others in the Washington/Oregon/Portland area, as a clinician/instructor, so she would have access to young adult riders, which may be where the allegations come from. I have seen no evidence that she instructs non-adults, beyond her daughters. But to be frank, she’s very much under-the-radar (for a long-time Equestrian professional) and seems to be “sitting on the edge of the pool, with her feet in the water”, if you get my meaning.

[Jealoushe]

Ok YUCK what is this?? Is this true?

[LexInVA]

I’m afraid so. I have seen nothing that refutes what I have said. Her particular case was very much widely unreported at the time, likely because it was in the early 2000’s, so you would have to dig to even know about it. I was simply lucky enough to connect the dots, whereas most others probably wouldn’t have. That being said, local people either know about her history and don’t care or they don’t know at all, because she’s had no references to her being a school teacher and was only one for a very short period of time.

[LexInVA]

I checked the registries in the two states she is affiliated with and she’s not registered, so she may have been one that slipped through the cracks or she was given a pass on registration, through her plea agreement, which saw most of the charges dropped against her.

[Moneypitt]

Anyone know about any equestrian SS cases involving harassment, racism, or anti-Semitism?

[LexInVA]

There are certainly going to be cases in other sports, but Gymnastics is the only one I know of where there’s been significant cases of bullying/harassment and that’s because the press releases about suspensions often say it outright, as they are more open about it after the Nasser and Karolyi debacles. Safe Sport’s main priority is to investigate all sexual abuse cases presented to it, so that’s what most of the investigators are working on, and from what I’ve seen, that problem seems to be what the cases coming from Equestrian sports (that we know about at this time) are about.