Judge denies Buffalo Skating Club’s bid to dismiss abuse lawsuit by former figure skater | Local News

Two decades back, Craig Maurizi filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Buffalo, saying that from 1976 to 1986, beginning at age 13, he endured sexual abuse by his previous figure skating mentor, Richard Callaghan, who later became one of the sport’s most prominent coaches.

Maurizi, a Williamsville indigenous who no lengthier lives in the space, beforehand publicly disclosed his accusations. He has claimed the Buffalo Skating Club, the Professional Skaters Affiliation and the U.S. Figure Skating Association realized about the reported abuse, but took no methods to quit it.

U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. approved a magistrate judge’s suggestion to grant the motions by the Specialist Skaters Affiliation and the U.S. Figure Skating Affiliation to dismiss the lawsuit against them and deny the Buffalo Skating Club’s movement to do so.

U.S. Magistrate Leslie G. Foschio tackled Maurizi’s aiding and abetting claims, such as the allegation that in the late 1970s, a team of figure skating judges, together with a Buffalo Skating Club board member, reviewed rumors that Callaghan was participating in sexual action with boy skaters. Also, in accordance to the lawsuit, a Zamboni driver at the ice rink complained to a member of club’s Board of Administrators that he witnessed Callaghan molesting a skater and that a further board member refused to permit his child to teach with Callaghan since the board member understood Callaghan was sexually concerned with male skaters.

“These allegations, if confirmed at demo, would sufficiently set up BSC understood of Callaghan’s alleged abuse, but took no motion to stop the abuse,” Foschio stated in his report.

Foschio pointed out that the grievance claimed a number of mothers and fathers complained to the club’s board about Callaghan’s behavior all through a skating level of competition and that the board fired Callaghan, demonstrating the board had some consciousness of the harm Callaghan triggered. Nonetheless, in accordance to the complaint, the club waited for the close of competition period to terminate Callaghan, making it possible for Callaghan’s abuse of younger male skaters to proceed.

“The criticism thus sufficiently states the aiding and abetting statements from BSC and BSC’s movement really should be denied with regard to the aiding and abetting claims,” Foschio wrote.

The lawsuit accused Callaghan of working with “his situation of believe in and authority to psychologically groom Craig for what turned into virtually a decade of sexual abuse” in the 1970s and 1980s, and accused the sport’s leaders of conspiring “to circumvent their personal internal methods to sweep Craig’s grievances less than the rug.”

A information still left with a attorney symbolizing the Buffalo Skating Club was not returned.

Callaghan, who was a mentor at the Buffalo Skating Club from 1976 to 1981, explained in an affidavit submitted with the courtroom that “I have a meritorious protection to this action and deny the allegations asserted by Craig Maurizi.”

Past yr, U.S. Figure Skating, the governing physique of the sport, agreed to spend $1.45 million to settle a lawsuit from a different determine skater who claimed he was sexually assaulted numerous situations as a teen in a Detroit ice rink by Callaghan, now 75.