2001: It is alleged that swimmers - note the plural tense - told two assistant coaches at Lawrence North about Christopher Wheat's sexually inappropriate behavior. These allegations were then forwarded to, John Diercks, the head coach at the Lawrence swim club who is alleged to have never bothered to contact law enforcement officials about these allegations. That same year Christopher Wheat resigns.2003: Christopher Wheat is hired back at Lawrence North club by John Diercks. It is further alleged by the victim's attorney, Jonathan Little, that Wheat was hired back despite that USA Swimming, the Lawrence school district and even Indiana Swimming knew of these allegations and allegations made by parents as well.
2009: Text messages to Christopher Wheat and a coach named, Amanda Cox, the McCutcheon High School swim coach and head of the youth team Maverick Aquatics, strongly suggest if not prove that Coach Cox also had knowledge of his behavior:
The text messages in question referenced from USA Today:
Wheat, in the messages, admits to having a relationship with a young girl. He describes her as the "blonde one" and names her friends.
Cox says "OK! That's was imy (sic) first thought."
Wheat describes being depressed and tells Cox the girl's mother had chaperoned a sleepover at the new pool the previous day -- and both Wheat and the girl were there.
[Wheat]: "Her mom kept asking me what's wrong … I wanted to say well I have been making out and the like with ur daughter … and well she called it quits earlier today" and "now I have 4 years with her … ugh … who knows where this one goes …
[Cox]: "D`amn"
[Wheat] "what"
[Cox] "Age"
[Cox] "But good catch … now put her back in the lake and chalk it up as an experience, smile about it occationally (sic), and upgrade to college … Or a vacation w/ boys."
[Link]
Upgrade to college? Vacation with boys? It sounds as if they are talking about "sky miles" or "travel options." How absolutely pathetic and degrading!
The victim's attorney as quoted by USA Today categorically states that swimmers and parents knew of Wheat's sexually abusive behavior and even forwarded these allegations in some way to the USA Swimming organization, The Lawrence School District, and Indiana Swimming. This is a bold statement and it sounds like there is a minimum of four witnesses here and it is alleged that nobody called the police, nobody advised that the police be called in so as to investigate and nobody bothered to ban the coaches.
These allegations will be easy to prove or disprove: Were there emails, stamped letters, phone records to any of the above organizations? If so will the memberships or these organizations still remain apathetic and not ask for a regime change?
Unfortunately, I think they will.
2 comments:
What you and the lawsuit is missing is exactly when, how, and who any of this information went from Diercks to USA Swimming or Cox to USA Swimming. It didn't.
You know what, I agree. I really want to see the brief - if you have it please send it.
Note, my third to last paragraphs states the following:
".. These allegations will be easy to prove or disprove: Were there emails, stamped letters, phone records to any of the above organizations? ..."
I was also careful to use words like: allegations, alleged etc. etc. I think I have been quite measured - I suspect you think otherwise?
With that said, we do have a convict named Christopher Wheat serving 15-years or so for those sex crimes. We have also seen that Chuck Wielgus "between you and me" email so it is not a stretch to consider that these allegations as possibly factual but we do need proof.
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