U.S. figure skating coach Richard Callaghan has lifetime ban reduced by arbitrator
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U.S. figure skating coach Richard Callaghan, who led Tara Lipinski to the 1998 Olympic gold medal and Todd Eldredge to the 1996 world championship, had his lifetime ban for alleged sexual misconduct involving a minor reduced to a three-year suspension Monday by an arbitrator after a U.S. Center for SafeSport hearing.
The decision, which was first reported by ABC News, also includes 15 years of probation and 100 hours of community service. The suspension of the 73-year-old Callaghan, one of the nationās most legendary skating coaches, was scheduled to begin immediately.
The lifetime suspension was reduced because the sexual misconduct dates back to the 1970s, when laws regarding those crimes were far less stringent than they are now.
āWhen the allegations pre-date the U.S. Center for SafeSport, the Center has to use whatever rules and laws existed from the sport, the U.S. Olympic Committee or state and local government at the time,ā SafeSport spokesman Dan Hill told USA TODAY Sports on Monday night.
Callaghan had been declared āpermanently ineligibleā by SafeSport in August after Adam Schmidt, a former skating student of Callaghanās, filed a lawsuit in San Diego alleging that Callaghan repeatedly sexually abused him from 1999 to 2001, beginning when Schmidt was 14 years old.
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The lawsuit also named U.S. Figure Skating, the sportās national governing body, and Onyx Ice Arena in Detroit, where Callaghan taught Schmidt.
The alleged sexual abuse occurred after USFS dismissed complaints of sexual misconduct against Callaghan in 1999 by Craig Maurizi, an Olympic coach who said that Callaghan engaged in inappropriate sexual conduct with him in 1976 when Maurizi was 13, and later initiated a full sexual relationship with Maurizi when he was 18.
That relationship continued until Maurizi was 22, after which time Callaghan allegedly continued to engage in the inappropriate sexual conduct sporadically for another 12 years, Maurizi told USA TODAY Sports in March 2018.
On Jan. 31, 2018, Maurizi detailed those allegations in a report filed with SafeSport, which suspended Callaghan on March 6, 2018. USFS then suspended him as well. Callaghan sued SafeSport but a judge dismissed that suit more than a year ago. The case remained unresolved until the August lifetime ban, which then was overturned Monday. Callaghan has repeatedly denied the allegations.
John Manly, Schmidtās attorney, blasted the arbitrator's decision Monday night.
āItās outrageous,ā he said. āThe message from the U.S. Olympic movement couldnāt be clearer. They donāt think child molestation is a serious matter. If they did, Richard Callaghan would never be around children again.ā
The news of the reduction of Callaghanās suspension is just the latest in a series of sexual abuse stories that have rocked figure skating in 2019.
On Jan. 18, two-time U.S. pairs champion John Coughlin, 33, died by suicide one day after he received an interim suspension from SafeSport. USA TODAY Sports has reported that there were three reports of sexual abuse against Coughlin, two of them involving minors. Coughlinās death effectively ended the investigation into those reports, SafeSport announced in February.
In a Jan. 7 email to USA TODAY Sports, Coughlin called the allegations against him āunfounded.ā
On August 1, three-time U.S. champion and 2014 Olympic team bronze medalist Ashley Wagner told USA TODAY Sports that she was sexually assaulted by Coughlin after a party at a USFS national team figure skating camp in Colorado Springs, Colo., in June 2008. At the time, she had just turned 17 and Coughlin was 22.
Last week, USA TODAY Sports reported that SafeSport has opened an investigation into an allegation of sexual abuse of a 13-year-old American female figure skater by French Olympic pairs skater Morgan Cipres in 2017.
The girl and her parents also said Cipresā coaches, John Zimmerman, a 2002 Olympian and member of the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame, and Silvia Fontana, a 2002 and 2006 Olympian representing Italy, tried to keep the family from reporting the alleged incident to authorities by shaming and threatening the girl as Cipres, who then was 26, prepared for the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Zimmerman and Fontana have denied the allegations, while Cipres said he had ānothing to say about this allegation.ā
Follow USA TODAY Sports' Christine Brennan on Twitter @cbrennansports.