Ex-Kentucky swimmers sue, accuse coach of rape
Two former Kentucky swimmers filed a lawsuit saying their former coach sexually assaulted them and that the university ignored warnings about his alleged inappropriate behavior toward women.
College Legal: Ex-Kentucky swimmers sue, allege sexual assault by then-coach
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Ex-Kentucky swimmers sue, allege sexual assault by then-coach
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Dan Murphy, ESPN Staff WriterApr 13, 2024, 11:21 AM ET
Two former Kentucky swimmers filed a lawsuit against the school, its athletic director and former swim coach Lars Jorgensen on Friday, claiming the coach sexually assaulted them -- including an allegation of rape -- and that the university ignored warnings about his alleged inappropriate behavior toward women.
The lawsuit states that Jorgensen "forcibly raped" former Kentucky swimmer Briggs Alexander, who was a graduate student at the time of the first alleged assault and, later, an assistant coach for the team. Another unnamed former swimmer claims Jorgensen groped, harassed and attempted to have sex with her in 2022 while she was an assistant coach. The lawsuit also details an allegation made by a third unnamed woman who is not a plaintiff and who says Jorgensen "forcibly raped" her in 2013 during his first year as the team's head coach.
Jorgensen did not respond to a phone call from ESPN. He told The Athletic, which first reported Friday's lawsuit, that none of the allegations against him are true.
Jay Blanton, a university spokesperson, said the school takes any allegations of misconduct "very seriously" but does not "discuss specific personnel issues."
Jorgensen resigned as Kentucky coach in June. The university did not provide any detail about why Jorgensen was leaving the swim team when it announced his resignation.
According to the lawsuit, multiple other coaches at Kentucky witnessed Jorgensen groping swimmers or his assistants during his decade with the program. On one occasion in 2015 or 2016, the suit says, a coach reported his alleged behavior to the university's Title IX office.
Mark Howard, who had coached with Jorgensen at the University of Toledo, told the plaintiffs' attorneys that he emailed Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart and the swim team's then-head coach Gary Conelly when Jorgensen was first hired as an associate head coach in 2012 to warn them about a previous alleged incident of sexual misconduct. According to the lawsuit, Howard wrote that "a former Toledo swimmer made it known to me about a sexual relationship she had with Lars [before] she had graduated. ... This is no joke at all and I cannot stomach the fact that he will be coaching women again."
According to the lawsuit, Conelly, who is named as a defendant, thanked Howard for sharing the "disturbing allegation" but did not follow up further with Howard. Conelly told The Athletic that he contacted the former Toledo swimmer, who told him she began dating Jorgensen after her swimming career. He said it "bothers me a little bit" but that it's not uncommon for coaches to have a relationship with one of their former swimmers.
Barnhart did not respond to Howard's email, the lawsuit says.
An athletic department spokesperson did not respond to a request to speak with Barnhart. Blanton said the university reviews any concerns raised about employees or potential employees "before a hire is made or an employee is retained." He also said the school allows claimants or potential victims to decide whether they want to participate in investigations about any alleged misconduct.
Alexander, who according to the lawsuit now identifies as male, said he reported the details of Jorgensen's alleged assault to a university Title IX officer in June 2023. The woman who says she was assaulted in 2013 also shared details about her alleged rape with the Title IX office around the same time. The Title IX office was investigating a different complaint about Jorgensen's "coaching tactics," according to the lawsuit.
Alexander and the other woman said the Title IX officer "vigorously discouraged" them from filing an official report of sexual assault. According to the lawsuit, their complaints to the Title IX office were unresolved because Jorgensen had left the university.
In November, the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which adjudicates complaints of sexual abuse and other misconduct for Olympic sports, issued a temporary measure against Jorgensen that included a ban on unsupervised coaching and a no-contact order following allegations of misconduct, according to its website.
Colón fired as CEO of U.S. Center for SafeSport
The U.S. Center for SafeSport fired CEO Ju'Riese Colón on Tuesday in the latest and most visceral sign of a crisis that began after revelations the center had hired an investigator who would later be charged with rape.
U.S. Center for SafeSport fires CEO Ju'Riese Colón
- Associated Press
DENVER -- The U.S. Center for SafeSport fired CEO Ju'Riese Colón on Tuesday in the latest and most visceral sign of a crisis that began after revelations the center had hired an investigator who would later be charged with rape.
The center told The Associated Press about Colón's removal in an email. It brought an abrupt end to a tenure that began in 2019. She was hired to help the then-2-year-old center, which was established to combat sex abuse in Olympic sports, bring its operation to full speed.
The center said its board chair, April Holmes, would lead an interim management committee composed of board members while they search for Colón's replacement.
"We are grateful for Ju'Riese's leadership and service," Holmes said in the statement sent to the AP. "As we look ahead, we will continue to focus on the Center's core mission of changing sport culture to keep athletes safe from abuse."
Colón did not immediately respond to a text message left by the AP.
In her five-plus years at the Denver-based center, Colón failed to fully untangle its struggles with long delays in processing an ever-growing caseload, or the stream of complaints from both accusers and accused who had been dragged through a resolution process that could take years.
No issue, however, illustrated the center's struggles more than its handling of former Pennsylvania vice squad officer Jason Krasley.
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Krasley was hired as an investigator for the center in 2021, but was abruptly fired last November when the center learned he had been arrested for allegedly stealing money from a drug bust he was a part of while with the force.
The center made no public mention of that until AP reported about the connection Dec. 26. Then, two weeks later, Krasley was arrested again, this time for rape, sex trafficking and other crimes -- an episode Colón to conceded was "devastating" for the center, which implemented changes in its hiring process.
The AP reporting led Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to open an inquiry into the center's handling of Krasley's hiring and employment.
In a letter to Colón, he wrote: "Accusations of rape and other sex crimes against any SafeSport investigator are especially concerning given SafeSport's mandate to protect athletes from similar abuse."
It was an obvious conclusion made more jarring by the fact he had to write it at all.
Colón's response to Grassley last month revealed more about the case, including that the center hired Krasley despite knowing he was the subject of an internal investigation. Grassley sent another list of questions to Colón, answers for which were requested by May 1. The center said it plans to deliver the answers by the deadline.
After Krasley's arrests were made public, the center reached out to people whose cases he handled, offering them counseling and a chance to share questions and concerns about the interaction with the investigator. Though the center has said there was no reason to think any of Krasley's cases had been compromised, the outreach triggered another set of problems.
One person who was contacted, Jacqui Stevenson, told AP the notification retraumatized her and made her wonder if her case, which resulted in her abuser receiving a one-year probation, could end in his penalty being voided.
The entire episode brings into question the viability of this 8-year-old experiment born out of the U.S. Olympic movement's inability to deal with wide-ranging abuse crises at USA Swimming, USA Taekwondo and, most notably, USA Gymnastics involving now-imprisoned doctor Larry Nassar.
Fueled by congressional hearings that included heart-wrenching testimony from abuse survivors, a consensus grew that an independent entity was needed to do the work the U.S. Olympic committee and its sports subsidiaries could not.
Congress passed laws requiring most of SafeSport's money (the center reported nearly $24.8 million in revenue in 2023) come from the organizations it oversaw. Despite its funding source, the center insisted on independence. It placed big demands on the sports organizations -- requiring resource-consuming annual audits and claiming first right of refusal on cases involving their sports.
It led to a lack of trust but also a fear of speaking up at both the Olympic committee and inside the individual sports agencies, lest anyone be accused of undermining the center, even if it wasn't performing well.
Others, though, did speak up.
Among the most common complaints the AP fielded from dozens of accusers, accused, witnesses and attorneys who reached out over the past 24 months were that everything the center did took too long and left too many people in limbo.
This was a symptom bedeviling an organization that, at last count, was receiving more than 150 new reports a week but had fewer than three dozen full-time investigators to sort through them.
Colón insisted the center's mission to deal not only with Olympic-level sports but all those sports down to the grassroots -- a remit that covers some 11 million athletes -- was the right one. She steadily pushed for more funding to beef up the operation.
Though disagreements over the center's mission and its ability to deliver given the budget constraints underscored a lot of the day-to-day wrangling about its future, no single episode undermined it the way Krasley's hiring and firing did.
While the center defended its vetting process, critics viewed the hiring of an alleged rapist to investigate sex abuse as a devastating error for an agency handed such an awesome and delicate responsibility.
Grassley's initial letter to Colón emphasized the low bar the center had failed to clear when it hired the ex-cop.
"Claimants and respondents alike deserve impartial, fair investigators who have not been accused of sexual misconduct of their own," the senator wrote.
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