The Independent

Butt-slapping accusation leads to 20 months of limbo for teen in slow-moving SafeSport Center case

Source: Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

The email, addressed to the 13-year-old swimmer from the U.S. Center for SafeSport, came out of the blue. “Between approximately 2019 and 2022, you allegedly engaged in a pattern of behavior which constitutes Sexual Misconduct,” it read, with both final words capitalized.

That was in April 2022. It took three months for the 8th grader to learn what the accusations were: A claim he had slapped another teammate on the butt in a locker room 10 months earlier, in June 2021.

More than 20 months later, the case remains open, even after local police in the town 40 miles north of investigated and dismissed it within weeks. Now 16 and a high school sophomore, the teen's promising swimming career has been plunged into uncertainty by the temporary sanctions imposed by SafeSport —

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