So when he pleads guilty will those who went after the victim believe it now?
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I would like to think that some would have the grace to apologize. Somehow I suspect that they will be off yapping about something else, through
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Theyâll probably continue to make excuses because thatâs what that type of person does.
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Guilty plea . Info from KOIN TV news
PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) â For the second day in a row a local former Olympic athlete pleads guilty to having an illegal relationship with a minor.
Rich Fellers, 63 of Oregon City, pleaded guilty Wednesday morning in Washington County Court to two counts of second-degree sex abuse.
Fellers was once on top of the American equestrian world, representing the United States in the 2012 Olympics in London riding his horse, Flexible until 2021 when he was arrested by Tualatin police.
On Tuesday, Fellers pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of interstate travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor.
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Itâs funny, when Fellers was originally suspended and COTH reported it, there were more than 1000 comments on it and many professionals and high profile names in the sport jumping to his defense.
Now thatâs heâs pleaded guilty and will be serving time in prison, where are those same people now?
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like I said before. Off yapping and complaining about some other âissueâ. That or looking at their own behavior and lawyering up
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I am glad that this situation is as resolved as it seems it will be. As to those who initially supported Rich: I think this is true of anyone accused of a crime, there will be associates, acquaintances, friends and family who are in disbelief. They are shocked but still withhold judgement. They seek answers before castigating. Some will hold onto their unwavering support even after proof, facts, evidence is laid out before them. Others will accept that the person is indeed guilty and say so. Others will accept and quietly resume their lives. This isnât unique to sex crimes or the equestrian world. People show many faces to the public, family and friends. Itâs true that we never really know someone. Even our own family members.
Again, I am satisfied that Rich has been held accountable for his actions. Justice has done its job. I hope Maggie will recover and thrive. I hope the worldânot just the sports worldâis more aware of the ways children (and adults) can be harmed by those in power positions.
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I stand by the thing I have said on more than one of these threads - Maybe they thought they knew someone and are now just shocked that they did not.
I was friends with someone who I never would have guessed had a history involving sexual misconduct with small childrenâŠIf anyone had asked me before I learned about it, I would have said âno wayâ.
Friends of the guilty are a victim of sorts too. (clearly I am not even slightly comparing them to the actual victim).
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Predators groom their character witnesses as carefully as they groom their victims.
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Many of them were busy ranting about SS, and how horrible it is. 
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Cognitive dissonance plagues the human condition.
People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict of perception/ experience with reality causes unpleasant feelings of unease or discomfort.
People who are less mentally, emotionally, psychologically flexible and growth oriented cling to anything (even disproven facts) to feel less discomfort
Thus you have people defending Fellers & Rob GageâŠ
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These things are so, so true.
It was a huge shock to many (me included) when a local community pillar was arrested and extradited to another state to face 14 counts of some sort of sexual contact with minors (plural minors).
When it made the local news, the paragraph explaining who the guy was in the community went on and on. He was notable and visible. Successfully built his own business and backed other small business owners to success. Significant help to charities. Not just contributing funds, but out there on the weekends working outside and sweating for said charities. Helped in his kidsâ school. Reliable project help with his church. On and on.
In hindsight, yeah I think he groomed us all. To trust him, to never doubt his constant good intentions. It was further proof to me that it could be anybody, no matter their status, or how admired they are.
The crimes for which he was arrested took place in a community several states away, several years in his past. Again in hindsight, I think he must have fled the place to re-establish a good-guy life where he thought it was unlikely that gossip would travel. (Just guessing.)
Maybe he thought that if he just wasnât around in the old place, everyone would drop it and move on. They didnât.
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I dunno. I donât think anyone is the villian in their own story. Perhpas this person did all the community things out of sheer goodness, or perhaps out of guilt for the âsecret lifeâ. None of it mitigates any of the harm done by the perpâs heinous acts, but Iâm not sure all these folks think far enough ahead for their good actions to be considered grooming random community members.
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In my experience (my daughterâs high school coach turned out to have been very good at grooming the parents). I do think it was intentional. He turned out to have been grooming several girls â that we know about â and had a sexual relationship with at least one.
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@mika0116 neatly explains the last 4 years in three paragraphs .
Efficiency Bonus Points (bing)
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Sorry but that does not make sense at all.
He thought and planned ahead in every other aspect of his life. This was (is) a smart guy, he created a large & profitable business.
He knew that he had a huge, monster legal and reputational jeopardy that could break over him at any moment like a tornado. Why wouldnât he line up all of the potential âI canât believe itâ support that he possibly could? Goodwill that would shine in a crisis, help his family through the storm, maybe some would be willing to do business with him again later after the situation settled down out of the public eye.
If he could manage the legal problems and keep them small, maybe let the whole thing fade into the distance. That does happen in the world.
A commentator once cynically remarked of a disgraced celebrity âGive it a couple of years, heâll be backâ. He was right.
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Fwiw ⊠grooming that keeps questions away comes in many different flavors ⊠it can work because an abuser is getting results in their professional field, and that benefits other people as well. People want to stay loyal. They donât want to report.
âWe are kicking ourselves for a lot of different reasons looking backwards, when it all kind of seems so clear what was going on,â the father of Groomâs alleged victim told The Washington Post. âItâs like, âOh my God, what idiots we are.â â
In an interview, Groomâs accuser, who is now 18, said she did not consider him to be an outlier in a sport that has in recent years undergone a reckoning with abusive coaches.
âItâs a great spawning ground for people that want to groom children, with highly motivated children whose parents are all-in to do it,â she said. âIt serves it on a silver platter. Iâm not like the only kid whoâs ever wanted something so bad they would do anything for it.â
But the board appeared hamstrung by Groomâs stature, ⊠âHe was an Olympian,â McCleery said, with supporters in the sport and success as a coach. âAnd so there was a lot of latitude.â
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My daughter was also a rower. Her coach could be very charming and was really, really good at coaching. The girls on his teams were recruited to top schools every year. He ran a competitive program and parents wanted their daughters to row with him.
Unbeknownst to the club my daughter rowed at, heâd been dismissed from his previous coaching job for untoward behavior with high school girls. The administration was furious when they found out (after a parent of a former rower discovered that she was dating him). She was 18 when they found out; he was 35. It likely started when she was a minor.
In theory, you are never supposed to have minor children unsupervised in the boathouse with a coach. In practice, they let it slide.
What should have made me suspicious was his habit of snapchatting with the girls and commenting on their Instagrams. When his former student was home from college, she joined winter training with the highschool team. My daughter said her teammates were taken aback by how she stayed behind after practice and that the two often were alone together. At the time, I thought this coach couldnât be so stupid that he would become involved with a student. Wrong.
After the fact, I learned that one of the girls who he had been snapchatting with at his previous job (which was deemed inappropriate), was the older sister of a girl on my daughterâs team! I couldnât believe that her parents didnât know about the first experience, but maybe the sister kept it secret. Luckily my daughter confided in me when he contacted her after practice and she also never spent time alone with him (I used to wait in the building while they practiced).
He also was borderline abusive in how he spoke to the girls. He came from an Eastern European country and I think it was how his coaches had behaved, but it should have been more of a red flag for me when my daughter said she liked having me in the launch boat because he didnât yell at them when I was there.
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SS has rules in place about communication with minors on social media including email.
Just for the reason illustrated above
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