2012 Olympian Ariana Kukors (now Ariana Kukors Smith by marriage) says the civil suit she filed against former coach Sean Hutchison and USA Swimming, among others, is about “holding people accountable” for the sexual abuse she says Hutchison inflicted on her.
Kukors came forward with the abuse allegations in February, and earlier this month announced a lawsuit against Hutchison, USA Swimming, former national team director Mark Schubert and three other organizations connected to the club and LSC (a regional governing body for swimming) where she says the abuse started. Kukors says Hutchison began grooming her when she was 13 and he was her 31-year-old coach at KING Aquatic Club in Washington. She says Hutchison began engaging with her sexually by age 16. Hutchison says the two weren’t in a relationship until Kukors was an adult.
More background:
- Olympian Ariana Kukors Accuses Former Coach Sean Hutchison of Sexual Abuse
- Ariana Kukors Opens Up With Details About Hutchison Abuse Allegations
- Sean Hutchison Denies Kukors’ Abuse Allegations In Statement
- USA Swimming Investigated Hutchison/Kukors In 2010, Statement Confirms
- Mark Schubert Says He Reported Hutchison/Kukors Rumors To FAST Coach
- SafeSport Director Susan Woessner Resigns, Discloses 2007 Kiss With Hutchison
- Ariana Kukors Files Civil Suit vs. Hutchison, USA Swimming, Schubert
“A huge part of this accountability is holding people accountable so we can prevent this,” Kukors told SwimSwam last week. “Because there are kids being victimized, there are kids being abused right now.”
Kukors said the civil suit, filed with the Orange County Superior Court of California, was the next step in a process of realization that started last fall. Kukors married her husband last August, but said that despite her marriage and a job she loved, that she had a difficult fall.
“In September, I decided to step away from my job and said the word ‘depression’ for the first time to my husband,” Kukors said. She started seeing a therapist, which in turn caused her to take a closer look back at her relationship with Hutchison.
“In January, I realized that I needed more information,” Kukors said. “For 10 years, what Sean had masked his abuse with was a love story. He told me that he loves me, that as hard as everything was, everything would be OK because we had a great love. And that’s what I believed.”
Kukors said she started reaching out to the people who knew Hutchison to try to better see him – and her former relationship with him – from the outside.
“I learned that I needed to go forward with my story because I believed he was still victimizing young women,” Kukors said,”and I also realized it was really important for my own healing process.”
“I learned that I needed to go forward with my story because I believed he was still victimizing young women.”
We spoke to Kukors at length about the suit, her allegations and her responses to some of the questions readers have had about her story and the suit itself.
2010 Investigation, Denial – Hutchison ‘requested’ transcript of interview
“I think that’s really important to know – that Emily was on the phone because Sean had requested that of me.”
By 2010, rumors were widely circulated among swimmers and coaches that Kukors, then 21, was in a relationship with Hutchison. The two worked together at the short-lived ‘Center of Excellence’ program within FAST, a club in southern California. A high-profile Washington Post story alleged a relationship between Hutchison and one of his swimmers, and USA Swimming mounted an investigation into the rumors.
Both Kukors and Hutchison at the time denied the existence of a sexual or romantic relationship, a fact that has drawn some criticism of Kukors allegations eight years later. But Kukors told SwimSwam last week that Hutchison closely monitored her answers to the investigator’s questions.
“He wanted to know every single thing I said to this investigator,” Kukors said. “My older sister was actually on the line transcribing the conversation so that I could pass on that information to Sean to tell him exactly what was said.
“I think that’s really important to know – that Emily was on the phone because Sean had requested that of me.”
Kukors also said Hutchison isolated her from other advisors. When the Washington Post story went public, Kukors was in the airport, on her way to secretly meet up with Hutchison. She says he immediately called her, told her to turn off her phone and not to talk to anyone but him.
“He was the first person I spoke to,” Kukors said. “My abuser was the first person who said ‘don’t talk to anybody, everything’s gonna be OK, I’m handling it’.
“I’ve learned a lot these last few months about the psychology of sexual abuse victims, and very rarely will they be the ones that raise their hands and say ‘I’m being abused, I need help’, because they’re still being controlled, they’re still being manipulated.”
Grooming Process – ‘It happens in broad daylight’
Kukors says Hutchison began ‘grooming’ her when she was 13. Child grooming is often defined as building an emotional connection with a child to gain their trust for the purposes of sexual abuse. It’s a concept Kukors says is misunderstood by some. She’s previously pointed to Hutchison’s practice of having his swimmers shake his hand after every practice as a first step in his grooming of her as a potential victim, a part of her allegations that has drawn criticism from some observers incredulous that a simple handshake could be part of the basis for a sexual abuse allegation.
“What I want to make clear is that it’s not a handshake that’s bad. It’s the intent behind the handshake that’s bad,” Kukors said. “The important thing to know about grooming is that it happens in broad daylight.
“Beginning at 13 is when I would say Sean started grooming me: allowing me to be more comfortable with a longer handshake, allowing me to be more comfortable looking in his eyes, holding his hand, having his hands on my back, putting his hands on my leg… Predators guide their victims through this process of becoming more comfortable around them.”
Kukors said another key part of the process was isolating her from those around her.
“Sean pulled me away from my friends and my family,” she said. “He would say things to me like ‘you’re the most impressive person I’ve ever met’, ‘I see things in you that nobody else could possibly see in you’, ‘We can accomplish things together that you couldn’t possibly accomplish with anybody else’.”
In her lawsuit, Kukors says coaches who were on deck with her and Hutchison at the 2006 Pan Pacific Championships and 2007 World Championships – in particular, named defendant Mark Schubert, then USA Swimming’s national team head coach – should have seen and reported warning signals of an inappropriate relationship. Though Kukors wouldn’t speak specifically to the suit itself (directing those questions to her lawyer), she said her and Hutchison’s conduct on those trips showed signs of an unusual coach-swimmer relationship.
“[Hutchison] was very much sneaking me away, sticking his hands down my pants in elevators, molesting me, kissing me, taking me away for private coffees,” Kukors recalls. “We were very close on the pool deck, many long conversations, we would often be seen having meals together, sitting together. Just things that were not common [of coach-swimmer relationships].”
Goal of Suit – ‘I needed help and it wasn’t there for me’
“That’s what I think is so important about this lawsuit: It’s holding people in power accountable. Unless people have to say ‘yes, I hid information’ or ‘I ran a poor investigation’, I don’t think that the right measures will be taken to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Kukors is adamant that the ultimate goal of her lawsuit is preventing her situation from happening again.
“That’s what I think is so important about this lawsuit,” she said. “It’s holding people in power accountable. Unless people have to say ‘yes, I hid information’ or ‘I ran a poor investigation’, I don’t think that the right measures will be taken to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
“Imagine if people, rather than passing along rumors – imagine if rather than ignoring reports – that they had simply asked the question ‘I wonder if that girl’s OK?’. ‘I wonder if she needs help?’ And had sat me down and had gotten me the proper counseling that I needed to uncover the answer to that question.
“I needed help, and it wasn’t there for me.”
In her suit, Kukors alleges that USA Swimming ignored or covered up reports against Hutchison, and one section of the suit even alleges that USA Swimming “deliberately manipulated the background check procedure” to protect Hutchison, along with other high-ranking USA Swimming officials, one who was accused of sexually abusing a minor and another who married one of his former swimmers, though he claims the relationship didn’t start until she was 18. Kukors wouldn’t elaborate on the specifics of that allegation, and USA Swimming didn’t address that specific allegation when we asked about it.
“The things that I’ve realized these last few months about an organization I thought was in place to protect me, is that I didn’t know it as well as I thought I did. I know it’s not the case that my safety and well-being were their #1 priority, and if they aren’t held accountable, how will they learn to do better for the next generation?”
“This lawsuit, at the core of it, is about making sure this never happens again,” Kukors said. “I can’t get my Olympic dream back. My Olympic experience was horrific. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. It was awful.”
Kukors says she plans to remain involved in pointing the sport in a new direction.
“If my involvement in this ends with the lawsuit, then I’ve failed,” she said. “I want to be a part of the solution.”
Prevention & Dialogue
“There’s this culture within organizations that says speaking up is wrong, that being the whistle-blower is negative. And that’s keeping kids in danger.”
With that in mind, Kukors shared a number of ways for parents and swimmers to spot signs of grooming within the sport.
“I think one of the biggest things is communication,” Kukors said. She says that while many parents teach their kids not to talk to strangers, it takes a more ongoing dialogue to guard against grooming. “The question is what happens when somebody that you hold in authority is doing the abuse?”
Key, Kukors says, is communication between parents of different swimmers. Sports can be cutthroat and competitive, she says, but that shouldn’t stop parents from talking directly to each other if they’re concerned about a relationship a child might have with a coach. Kukors wonders aloud what could have happened if other parents or other swimmers had alerted her parents to the fact she was leaving Hutchison’s room late at night at travel meets.
Kukors said communication isn’t only important between individuals, but also within organizations like USA Swimming.
“There’s this culture within organizations that says speaking up is wrong, that being the whistle-blower is negative,” she said. “And that’s keeping kids in danger.”
And beyond that, she adds, a broader dialogue among swimmers, coaches, parents, fans and everyone involved in the sport will help bring more into the light. Kukors said the conversation that has grown out of her decision to go public with her story – even dissenting comments and opinions – are helping people learn more about the complicated issue of the grooming and the “deep and complex psychology behind abuse victims.”
“I like that they’re creating dialogue,” she said, “because that dialogue is what’s going to cause change. Silence will not cause change.”
Clearly AK is the victim and Hutchison is the perpetrator. That is the fact.
But if you’re going to blame everyone else for what happened, where were her parents? Or sisters?
To this day I’m grateful for my mother who years ago took me out of a sports club (not swimming) as soon as there were rumors about my coach (which were later proven true).
Hutchinson dan USA Swimming have many supporters here.
It’s sad.
That’s why there’s not many victims speak up. Just look at this comment section of this article. The majority of them blame the victim and her family.
Who’s supporting Hutchinson? Nobody is blaming the victim or her family. They didn’t cause the abuse.
Personally, all I’ve done is questioned why she felt others should have done more to prevent the abuse and when even her parents and sister were either clueless or willfully ignorant about the relationship. I’ve also wondered how she can hold others accountable for failing to investigate properly when she admits to hindering the investigation and even brought her sister in on the operation. USA Swimming TRIED to investigate, but she blew smoke and is now blaming them for not being able to see through the smoke better. This isn’t my opinion, it’s fact. I’m a supporter of facts.
Did USA Swimming actually try to investigate? Let’s look at the facts. They either had or knew about pictures of them leaving his apartment in late 2010. So they assigned someone who (it turns out) was romantically involved with Sean and who had absolutely no experience in these matters to oversee the “investigation” that Ariana claims consisted of a short phone call. Further, they then took the unprecedented step of publicly clearing Sean AND sent out a letter to the membership accusing an anonymous whistleblower of putting out “malicious lies” regarding the matter. The best part is that Sean was so “innocent” that he appears to have been told to quietly disappear.
Does that sound like an investigation to you?… Read more »
Never said they should be reprimanded, just that if we’re going to start holding people accountable, perhaps the parents may want to release a statement acknowledging their role in the saga (much like AK has).
How about we just have an experienced licensed therapist/psychologist who deals with abuse victims/families come on here and put this argument to rest. This is utterly ridiculous to sue the family. People commenting on this piece as to why she lied, she should sue the family, etc just need to stop for a minute and understand the situation of repeated abuse that went on for years. The psychology around this whole horrific experience. If you’ve not experienced it than I guess it’s hard to understand it but stop treating it like a normal situation because it is not.
I feel like anyone who responds here with anything but empathy for AK is a shill for USA swimming and their attorneys/publicists etc.
That feeling may just be gas.
You can have empathy and still have common sense. This coach is a pedophile, no doubt. Sue the crap out of him, USA swimming, yeah Im ok with that. It might force some positive changes, but the team, the city, come on. Parents are supposed to be the first line of defense. Not suing them? Suing team and city facility, they were supposed to know more about AK than her family?
That’s a really dumb comment. There should be a lively discussion and open minds. If we are going to change mindsets we need to listen as much as we tell. Calling people shills is just not helping. There are some good people in the organization and on the Board. How do you think anything changed in 2010 after Chuck’s 20/20 performance? We need to keep working to prevent abuse and the easiest way to do that is dialog so that swimmers, parents and coaches know boundaries and have a clear understanding of healthy coach-athlete relationships.
A dumber comment is questioning why she doesn’t sue her parents? I don’t see any lively discussion here just people with an agenda. I think similar happened in one of the other stories on this topic..
TAA, that’s an unfair comment. Just because we have thoughts on various aspects of a complex situation does not at all mean we have sympathy for Hutchinson. I’ve never even met him myself but obviously he’s a perverted, disgusting person who deserves what he gets.
It’s a fair comment. People were not being objective or trying to have a dialogue. They were just trying to put AK and her family down by victim shaming
A few points:
A lot of people are making the assumption her sister knew in 2011. If you go back and read her story from February she seems to clearly indicate nobody in her family knew until sometime in 2012 and even then her Dad still did not know.
Are you criticizing an abuse victim about not being forthright 6 years into their abuse and 8 years after the onset of the grooming process? Seems a bit harsh to me.
As others have said, sexual predators groom parents just the same as they do kids. You know who’s known that since well before Ariana was groomed? USA Swimming. Interesting they seem more interested in silencing victims than educating parents.
Are… Read more »
So the sister and the parents…who conceivably knew AK best…didn’t have a clue. But others were supposed to not only know about it but are named liable in a lawsuit.?
Whereas her parents and sister are not?
To quote AK: “That’s what I think is so important about this lawsuit,” she said. “It’s holding people…accountable. Unless people have to say ‘yes, I hid information’… I don’t think that the right measures will be taken to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
So it’s clear that AK “hid information”. Will she acknowledge it so that the right measures can be taken to ensure it doesn’t happen again?” At some point she became part of the cover-up.
SPOT ON!
Wouldn’t the more relevant question in this equation, as it relates to the lawsuit, be: Who knew Sean best?
We’re sitting here faulting the victim and her family, but nobody seems interested in whether USA Swimming or the regional bodies saw the signs they clearly knew (from years of prior experience) that high risk coaches exhibit and still permitted him access to children.
Bgnole97 – just for the record, Kukors did address that in her own blog post when she went public with these allegations. (You can read more here). She acknowledged that she lied to the investigator, and in my interview with her last week, she acknowledged that again. Both times, she referenced being afraid to admit to having a relationship with Hutchison. Take that reasoning for what you will, but she has now several times acknowledged her own role in that investigation.
Which means her suit against USA swimming, the city, facility is on thin ice.
I’m glad that she’s recognized her own role in this saga. I’m sure she regrets it.
But she’s being inconsistent in how she is picking and choosing people and organizations to sue. She’s not being intellectually honest about it.
It seems clear that her attorney chose whom to sue, and which organizations, based on public impact, money and insurance coverage. The US Gymnastics recent experience was clearly a factor. One can assume AK’s lawyer, for example, spoke to the gymnast’s lawyer to learn from the experience.
Just so we’re clear: she’s wishing someone would have asked her, “Are you OK?”. And yet, when she was questioned about a relationship, she “denied the existence of a sexual or romantic relationship.”
So what, exactly, is she wishing someone would have done differently? At what point does insisting there is “something going on” and hounding a young woman about her potential romantic interests/love life with the intent of rooting out an abusive relationship become harassment on the part of those “trying to help”?
There needs to be a Good Samaritan Law that protects those who “see something and say something” from potential harassment lawsuits if there really isn’t anything going on.
I think it’s quite clear from the article that she denied the relationship because Hutchinson was spying on her. Why is that still at issue? They SHOULD have interviewed her without Hutchinson knowing about it. Not that hard to do.
THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE! She was the one who allowed her sister to be on the phone to transcribe the interview for him to see. Again, what should people have done differently? How many times do you think someone probably said something along the lines of, “You’re pretty close with coach, huh?” or there were probably rumors about it among her team(s) and if she heard about them, she probably told people to “Mind their own business”–that tends to be what happens when others try to meddle in other peoples’ relationships, yknow.
Hutchinson was “spying on her” by using Emily? Sounds like she would be the worst spy ever if AK really needed help. Why not just have Emily write something different down and tell USA Swimming the “truth”? Or say “No Sean, I’m not going to have Emily transcribe”. Sane Swim Parent your logic is insane and these are valid questions. Not defending whatever happened or didn’t happen here, but saying you didn’t tell the truth because you were being spied on by your sister seems pretty weak. Maybe it is a psychological control which is why we all want the true answers. If she lied bc she loved him and didn’t want him to get in trouble but years later… Read more »
Um, USA Swimming could have interviewed her first, and/or in person. I can’t believe a phone call constitutes a serious investigation. Because Hutchinson had a heads up, he had a chance to manipulate the situation. Her sister didn’t know about their relationship yet, and he knew she’d be even less likely to admit it with her sister on the line.
Someone who’s investigating sexual abuse should know enough to anticipate that it’s possible that the victim will lie out of shame or fear: e.g., when the police found Elizabeth Smart, they separated her from the captors before they asked her who she was, and even then, they had to coax the answer out of her.
Smart was 14/15 yrs old. AK was a grown woman when questioned, and SH wasn’t present while she was interviewed, either in person or on the phone himself.
You’re not seriously drawing an equivalence here, are you? Elizabeth Smart was threatened with death nearly every day of her captivity. I’m not denying that AK was a victim of abuse, but it isn’t all the same.
I think on one hand you raise a good point. There wasn’t as much awareness back then of this stuff (in no small part because USA Swimming covered up so much coaching abuse) so it’s harder to blame observers for not digging deeper.
On the other hand, they’re still culpable. If a 13 year old kid repeatedly comes to school with bruises, but says “I’m ok” when a teacher asks about it, is the teacher completely off the hook? Or would we expect the teacher to look deeper into the matter (or at least report it to someone), knowing that an abused child is likely to lie out of fear or manipulation? Why would we treat sexual abuse differently?
Fair point, but the key significant difference it the bruising which is a direct observable indicator that “something is going on” rising to the level of abuse without need of the kid confirming it. The only positive proof I can think of indicating a non-forceable (notice I didn’t say consensual) sexual relationship between AK an SH would have been her becoming pregnant or contracting an STD. At that point, the doctor would have legal grounds to come forward.
Just because sexual abuse doesn’t leave physical scars doesn’t mean there aren’t signs. You’re stuck in an antiquated way of thinking that minimizes sexual abuse compared to physical. There were no bruises to see, but plenty of signs to anyone sincerely looking: a swimmer leaving a coach’s hotel room, parking outside his home, having private meals with him, staying in constant contact with him.
You want “direct, observable indicators”? There they are. No one gets to claim innocence because she wasn’t showing up with two black eyes.
So her parents, sister, teammates…none of them are named in the lawsuit. Surely they were the ones most privy to these types of warning signs.
This would be a relatively easy defense, although it’s quite obvious that USA Swimming will choose to settle this out of court rather than fight it and look worse than USA Gymnastics.
Thank you SRS for bringing up her parents. I am confused as to what happened with them in all of
this, since they are rarely mentioned. Now that this is will be in the courts ,I assume the discovery process will enlighten us on what exactly their role was in this tragic situation.
Don’t forget that Kelly Davies’ parents signed a settlement agreement and non-disclosure on behalf of their daughter in the early 1990’s to settle the abuse claims by Rick Curl. I think that sometimes parents are caught up in the Svengali-type coach–believing somehow that no other coach can get their daughter to the Olympics or rationalize inaction with a “she seems happy” or “we can’t put our daughter through public disclosure”… Perhaps I am wrong but it may be that AK denied the relationship to her parents and swore her sister to secrecy. Or AK was so under Hutchison’s spell that she ignored her parents’ protestations. Under any of these scenarios, Hutchison’s conduct was wrong. I hope Ariana’s coming forward opens… Read more »
I like this lawsuit for the hopeful “accountability” she mentions. There’s no doubt that too many people had direct and indirect knowledge of something going on and failed to help Ariana for too long.
But it does beg the question – if everyone else failed to protect her and are the target of the civiil suit – then are her parents and sister named, as well? I mean, her sister was on the phone during interviews and (I assume), her parents knew she lived with him. Are they not in someway just as complicit in failing to protect her?
I hope this doesn’t come across as ‘victim blaming’ because I fully believe Ariana’s accusations and support this action…but naming literally… Read more »
It would be more damning if the parents were mental health professionals. I am sure they were blinded by the success their daughter had while training under this coach. How many parents just assume that a fast swimmer is a happy swimmer. If the kid drops time they must be happy.
I agree there is some disconnect here with who the lawsuit blames (outside of Hutchinson, which is a given).
““Imagine if people, rather than passing along rumors – imagine if rather than ignoring reports – that they had simply asked the question ‘I wonder if that girl’s OK?’. ‘I wonder if she needs help?’ And had sat me down and had gotten me the proper counseling that I needed to uncover the answer to that question.”
This paragraph especially confuses me. This is something family members should do, not other coaches on deck, and especially not LSC officials. While it’s tough to blame your family, I don’t see how they escape responsibility here. If her sister didn’t want… Read more »
At the risk of seeming ‘insensitive’, what about Kukors own personal accountability? As I read it, the alleged affair went on for a number of years after she turned 18, even into her 20s, and she voluntarily moved with him. Not to say he doesn’t have liability, but simply that an adult woman needs to stand on her own two feet as well. Also, the proximity of her lawsuit to the large sums paid out by US Gymnastics and the university is hard to overlook when one asks ‘why now?’
You clearly know nothing about abusive relationships. When you have been groomed by a predator since you were 13, you don’t suddenly understand it was wrong once you turn 18. Hutchinson had been controlling her for many years and had convinced her he loved her during an important time in her emotional and mental development. That control continued into her 20s.
Kukors-Smith answers your “Why now?” question in the article. She began going to therapy and working through some of her trauma. This opened her eyes to the fact that what she went through was wrong and illegal. Before that, she had buried the painful memories of what had happened.
In my own life, I can think back… Read more »
If you’re an adult, you know 18-20 isn’t very old – and this was following years of psychological grooming, manipulation, and isolation. As someone who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship, I can see how it would take distance and time (as well as her first healthy, supportive relationship) for Ariana to gain some perspective on her relationship with Hutchinson.
Ugh. Again. Read About ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ for starters. Then read her press conference where she talks about her husband being the first one to draw the big fat boundary and Ariana’s reaction: scared to death that SH was going to come after him or her. If that doesn’t tell you the hold on someone well into their 20’s and the psychological effects of abuse than I don’t know what does. Ask any abuse victim and they will tell you exactly the same.