NHL: Lawsuit against Penguins for alleged cover-up of sexual harassment

The wife of a former Pittsburgh Penguins coach is preparing to file a sexual assault lawsuit against the organization and former assistant general manager Bill Guerin.

Erin Skalde, who is married to former Wilkes-Barre Scranton assistant coach Jarrod Skalde, is expected to file suit in Rhode Island. In the suit, she alleges that Clark Donatelli, the former head coach of the Penguins’ minor league affiliate team, sexually assaulted her during a team away trip in Providence in 2018.

Skalde will reportedly name Guerin, the current general manager of the Minnesota Wild, as well as Penguins owners Ron Burkle and Mario Lemieux as defendants.

A press conference is expected to take place on Tuesday.

When the incident first came to light last year, Jarrod Skalde was ordered to keep quiet about Donatelli’s alleged abuse after he reported it to Guerin and management seven months later. He said he was fired for complaining about the incident again to the team, prompting the Skaldes to file suit in Pennsylvania last November for violating the state’s whistleblower laws.

Guerin left the Penguins in the period between the alleged attack and Skalde’s dismissal.

Erin Skalde claims she was inappropriately touched by Donatelli after a dinner in Providence when the two were briefly alone and again sat in the back seat of a ride-share car while Jarrod sat in the front seat.

In the first lawsuit filed in November, the Skaldes sought damages for “physical and mental pain and suffering, as well as loss of income.”

The second lawsuit against the Penguins comes as the NHL grapples with the fallout and response to the Chicago Blackhawks’ cover-up of a sexual assault in 2010. Several members of the Blackhawks’ executive team lost their jobs and the organization was fined $2 million after an independent investigation concluded that club members ignored allegations that a former video coach sexually harassed former junior player Kyle Beach before being allowed to quietly leave his post and continuing to harass others.

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