Clarification: The original article mentioned that Scott MacFarland coached a team in Colorado that was associated with the Mission Viejo Nadadores in California. Swimming World clarified that the association was in name only and that the Mission Viejo Nadadores of California does not have any legal standing in the suit.
Sarah Ehekircher filed a civil suit against her former club swimming coach Scott MacFarland, USA Swimming in Orange County Superior Court on Tuesday, alleging sexual abuse of a minor, negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The Orange County Register first reported the story.
According to the Orange County Register, Ehekircher was able to file the suit because of a new California law that allows sexual abuse victims to finally confront in court their abusers and the organizations that protected predators despite the statute of limitations running out. The law went into effect this year and gave alleged victims a three-year window to file past claims that had expired under the statute of limitations.
“For myself and others we are now actually able to seek justice,” Ehekircher told the Register. “I would have done this before but it was outside the statute of limitations.”
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According to the Register, the suit alleges that MacFarland raped Ehekircher several times while she was still 17 and impregnated her when she was 18.
“There are so many adults that seriously failed me, none of this had to happen if just one adult tried to help me,” Ehekircher wrote in an email to the Register. “One!”
Ehekircher filed a SafeSport complaint against MacFarland with USA Swimming in 2010, according to the Register. In the ensuing USA Swimming board of review investigation, MacFarland admitted under oath that he had a consensual sexual relationship with Ehekircher when she was 18 but denied having sex with her in 1986 when she was 17, according to the court filing. The board’s review stated it did not find enough evidence to verify a sexual relationship when she was 17.
At the time, USA Swimming did not have any rule against sexual relationships between coaches and their adult swimmers. That changed in 2013.
According to the suit, MacFarland offered Ehekircher a place to stay in Colorado where he coached a USA Swim Team. USA Swimming did not have policies prohibiting coaches from living with the children they coached at the time. MacFarland told the Aurora, Colorado, school district he was Ehekircher’s “guardian,” the suit said.
“In reality, Scott MacFarland was not Sarah’s ‘guardian’ he was her molester and exploiter,” the suit says.
MacFarland resigned as coach at the Magnolia Aquatic Club in Texas in 2018 after Ehekircher went public.
Update (8/25): Ehekircher wrote a story detailing her abuse for the Guardian.