Woman accuses former Olympic swimming coach of sexually abusing her as a teenager and USA Swimming of failing to stop it

CNN
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A former top swimmer accused her Hall of Fame According to a lawsuit, the coach sexually abused her about 15 years ago when she was a minor. He claims USA Swimming and other organizations and individuals knew about the abuse and did nothing to stop it.

Amanda Le’s lawsuit was directed against “the individuals and companies that allowed a known child molester to work as a swim coach for youths, that supported him for decades with infrastructure, position and prestige, and that gave him unfettered access to a never-ending cycle of young girls whom he exploited,” the lawsuit states. “Amanda Le was one of those girls.”

The 33-page lawsuit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, accuses Joseph Bernal, the former Fordham and Harvard swim coach who was part of the U.S. coaching staff at the 1984 and 1988 Olympics, of sexual abuse. He coached several Olympic medalists and world record holders and was inducted into the American Swim Coaches Hall of Fame in 2015, the lawsuit says.

He also founded Bernal’s Gator Swim Club, an amateur swim club, and coached Le from 2006 to 2010. Bernal sexually abused Le from about 2008 to 2014, the lawsuit says.

In February 2016, USA Swimming permanently suspended Bernal for verbally abusing an unnamed “Athlete A,” the lawsuit states. That athlete, according to the lawsuit, was Le.

Bernal is named on a USA Swimming website that lists people who have been permanently suspended or banned from membership for “sexual misconduct.”

“USA Swimming is deeply committed to the safety and well-being of all of its members,” then-organizational spokesman Scott Leightman said in a statement to The Boston Globe in 2016. “The mission of the Safe Sport program is to raise awareness to reduce the risk of abuse in sport, and our organization does not tolerate violations of our Code of Conduct.”

CNN has reached out to USA Swimming for comment on the lawsuit. CNN has also reached out to an attorney for Bernal’s estate and other defendants named in the lawsuits for comment.

According to an obituary, Bernal died in October 2022.

The lawsuit comes amid a series of allegations of abuse and misconduct in the national governing bodies that oversee elite youth sports, such as USA Swimming. In 2021, for example, USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and their insurers agreed to pay $380 million in a settlement with victims of Larry Nassar, the former Olympic doctor who sexually abused girls for decades.

Jon Little, Les’s lawyer, told CNN that there is a culture that allows this abuse.

“What happened to her is sad, but it’s not unusual,” Little said. “People like Larry Nassar and Bernal, who produce Olympic medalists – as long as these people produce medals and money, they can literally rape children. The system is designed to protect the producers. Getting rid of Nassar and Bernal doesn’t change the problem.”

The lawyer said Le filed the lawsuit to show the children that they are not alone.

“She felt alone then, but not anymore,” Little said.

According to the lawsuit, Le trained and competed with Bernal’s Gator Swim Club of New England, known as BGSC-NE, from age 13 to 18. When she was 15 and Bernal was in his mid-60s, he kissed her after practice, and the sexual contact escalated over the next few years, the lawsuit says.

“While in high school, Amanda began to experience panic attacks that she believed at the time were solely due to the stress of swimming. She knew she was afraid of doing poorly because she would be punished for it,” the lawsuit states. “Amanda also suffered the effects of the sexual abuse, although she was not aware of it at the time.”

On several overnight team trips, Le slept in Bernal’s hotel room, the lawsuit says. From her junior year to her senior year of high school, she skipped school and the coach would pick her up and take her to his home to have sex, the lawsuit says.

Le attended college from 2011 to 2014, and when she was in her third year, Bernal impregnated Le and subsequently paid for an abortion, the lawsuit says.

The abuse continued even though some adults knew about it, the lawsuit says. In one case, Le’s mother found her diary detailing her relationship with Bernal, and Le’s parents then showed it to another coach at Bernal’s Gator Swim Club, the lawsuit says. That coach did not contact police and “did nothing to protect Amanda,” the lawsuit says.

In addition, USA Swimming was “aware of complaints about Bernal’s inappropriate conduct toward underage swimmers” before Le began participating in the sport, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit accuses Bernal, USA Swimming and other defendants of violating the Human Trafficking Victims Protection Act. In addition, the lawsuit accuses Bernal of sexual abuse and the others of negligence.

Bernal was previously named in a lawsuit in August 2021 in which Kimberly Stines accused him of a “five-year campaign of systematic emotional and sexual abuse” that began in 1976. USA Swimming is not a defendant in the lawsuit.

Little, who also represents Stines, said the litigation is ongoing and a trial is expected sometime in late 2025 or early 2026. He said the system has failed to protect Stines.

“The system failed her and now she feels guilty that there is an Amanda Le,” he said.