USOPC asks for more information in ethics probe of USA Water Polo executives

U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee investigators twice this week requested additional information from a group of former Olympians and USA Water Polo officials and national team coaches in the USOPC’s two-month ethics probe of USA Water Polo’s handling sexual abuse cases and governance under CEO Chris Ramsey and longtime board chairman Mike Graff.

The USOPC review is the latest threat to Ramsey and Graff’s 15-year reign over the Irvine-based national governing body, a tax exempt nonprofit.

Ramsey and Christy Sicard, USA Water Polo’s senior director for Safe Sport, are currently under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for failing to report 2017 sexual assault allegations to law enforcement or Child Protective Services as required by California law and the U.S. Center for SportSport code.

Former Olympians and USA Water Polo officials and coaches have also called on the U.S. Senate to investigate whether Ramsey lied to the Senate subcommittee in 2018.

A petition – created by former Olympians and USA Water Polo board members, coaches and employees demanding the removal Ramsey and Graff – has attracted more than 900 signatures, including those of a number of Olympic medalists, Olympic and national team coaches, and NCAA All-Americans.

Holly Shick, USOPC chief ethics and compliance officer, requested on Wednesday the so-called “Gang of Seven,” a group of former Olympians, national team players, coaches and officials, provide supplemental information including “first-hand” accounts regarding an Athlete Advisory Council election.

In a Saturday email to the group, Schick requested the group urgently provide additional information to allegations outlined in a Feb. 7 memo from the group. In the 19-page, 6,400-word memorandum to the USOPC, the group laid out a detailed case “as to why the USOPC should require CEO Chris Ramsey and Board Chair Mike Graff, and indeed the entire USAWP Board, to resign”

“Please be assured we would be pleased to fully cooperate and are prepared to present this voluminous testimonial and written evidence to support the facts in our memo at the appropriate time and place,”  the group responded to Shick on Saturday in a letter signed by Christopher Duplanty, a three-time Olympian, former U.S. women’s national team assistant coach, and USOPC executive committee and Athletes Advisory Council member, and Rafael Ruano, a former U.S. national youth team head coach and currently a Sacramento area attorney.

But Duplanty and Ruano also expressed with frustration with the USOPC.

“With all due respect, for you to now ask for testimonial and documentary support of the facts we cite in our February 7th memo in one day, raises additional questions as to the USOPC’s priorities, particularly since the USOPC has the authority to demand documents and information from its own member NGB, a power we do not have,” Duplanty and Ruano said.

“We believe our 19-page detailed memo is very compelling. It makes the point, among others, that USA Water Polo has not been properly functioning as an NGB for years and indeed, is putting athletes and members at risk, even today.”

In a Feb. 2, 2018, letter to USA Water Polo, Sens. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), the chairman and ranking member of a U.S. Senate subcommittee investigating sexual abuse in American Olympics sports, asked: “What reporting protocols for child and sexual abuse allegations are currently in place to ensure that all reports receive fair, timely, and thorough review by all appropriate parties, including law enforcement?”

In response to the senators, Ramsey wrote: “In the event that USA Water Polo were to receive a report regarding alleged child or sexual abuse by one of its members, volunteers, employees, officers or directors, it would immediately notify the appropriate law enforcement authority and the U.S. Center for SafeSport,” .

But Ramsey and Sicard acknowledged in depositions last year that they did not report 2017 sexual abuse allegations against female players coached by Orange County’s Bahram Hojreh raised in the four reports to law enforcement or Child Protective Services. Instead, they relied on the accounts of parents that law enforcement had been contacted.

At least four reports were filed with USA Water Polo between July 10 and 14, 2017, which outlined allegations or allege that players coached by Hojreh repeatedly sexually assaulted young girls from at least five teams during tournaments that summer by grabbing or trying to penetrate their vaginas..

While USA Water Polo officials forwarded reports and complaints to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, they did not report the incidents to law enforcement or Child Protective services even though under California law and SafeSport code they are mandated reporters of sexual abuse, according to depositions, emails, letters and sworn declarations obtained by the SCNG.

Hojreh continued coaching at International Water Polo, the Orange County club, and at Kennedy High School in La Palma until he was arrested in April 2018 on 22 charges ranging from sexual battery, lewd act with an individual under 14, and sexual penetration of a minor with a foreign object, according to arrest records and court filings.

He was not banned for life from the sport by the U.S. Center for SafeSport until Feb. 14, 2019, 10 months after his arrest and 20 months after USA Water Polo received the first allegations about Hojreh and IWP and sexual abuse.

Hojreh allegedly continued sexually abusing at least a dozen underage girls he coached between July 2017 – when the first complaints about the coach and IWP were submitted to USA Water Polo – and his April 2018 arrest, according to police reports, court filing, and interviews.

Hojreh has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. He has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.