Beginning in October of last year, USA Water Polo unleashed a shrewd social media campaign. #WaterPoloTough highlighted exceptional athletes as they displayed remarkable ability and resilience.<\/p>\n
![\"usawp\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/usawp.jpg\")
Skillfully produced by the prominent British advertising firm Saatchi & Saatchi, the series of vignettes\u2014created to be shown prior to the now-postponed Tokyo Olympics\u2014is entirely disconnected from allegations of mismanagement currently plaguing the U.S. national governing body for polo.<\/p>\n
As a result of a sexual abuse scandal involving a prominent former age group coach, a coalition of long-time polo advocates is working furiously to oust senior leadership at USA Water Polo. Leaving the national governing body like the athletes in those captivating videos: treading water in tough times.<\/p>\n
[USA Water Polo Leadership Accountability; Call for CEO and Board Chairman Removal<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n The sexual abuse scandal has ensnared USA Water Polo Chief Executive Officer Christopher Ramsey<\/strong> and Christy Sicard<\/strong>, USAWP\u2019s Senior Director, Membership and SafeSport Compliance. Both have been named as defendants in a civil suit alongside Bahram Hojreh<\/strong>, a one-time USAWP SOPAC Zone board member and long-time polo coach in SoCal.<\/p>\n Some believe there w<\/span>ere potentially criminal lapses in responsibility and judgment by Ramsey and Sicard, who reportedly did not notify local law enforcement quickly enough to suit the complainants, following multiple reports of abuse perpetrated by members of Hojreh\u2019s International Water Polo 16U girls\u2019 team against two opponents in 2017.<\/p>\n A still from the #WaterPoloTough social media campaign. Photo Courtesy: POBY and USAWP<\/p><\/div>\n The suit, filed a year ago in California Superior Court by the law firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi on behalf of former players of Hojreh\u2019s International Water Polo Club, has caused a legal and public relations embarrassment, tarnishing Ramsey\u2019s credibility after 14 years leading USAWP through a period of sustained growth. That tenure as CEO\u2014including an announcement last year of an agreement with the City of Irvine on a $250 million-dollar training center and aquatics venue\u2014may be irreparably harmed by concerns about how the CEO and his board handled sexual abuse allegations against Hojreh.<\/p>\n [Future Is Now for US Olympic Water Polo Program; Irvine Approves New Aquatics Center<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n Ramsey denies there was any delay in reporting Hojreh to the proper authorities.<\/p>\n \u201cFollowing initial reports regarding the alleged conduct of International Water Polo Club athletes, USA Water Polo ensured that reports were made to local law enforcement and the US Center for SafeSport, which, within the Olympic movement, has exclusive jurisdiction to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct,\u201d Ramsey was quoted in an October 2020 statement, following the naming of him, Sicard, and USAWP in the civil suit.<\/p>\n The allegations concern Hojreh, who for two decades was an age group and high school boys and girls coach in California\u2019s Orange County. His coaching career has been pock-marked by incidents. Fired twice by the Irvine Unified School District for allegations of abusive behavior, by July 2017 Hojreh was leading the 16U boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 teams for International Water Polo Club, based at the Joint Forces Training Base facility in Los Alamitos.<\/p>\n Bahram Hojreh. Photo Courtesy: Rose Palmisano<\/p><\/div>\n In a girls\u2019 16U match during Junior Olympics play that summer, International was matched up against the Alliance Water Polo Club of Los Alamitos in a back-and-forth contest until the third period, when Alliance began to pull away. Suddenly, an Alliance player yelled of her opponent: \u201cshe grabbed my vagina!\u201d The referee responded by excluding the outraged complainant from the match. Astonished, she stormed off the pool deck.<\/p>\n A heated discussion on the pool deck ensued between parents, referees, Hojreh and Christopher Smithson<\/strong>, head coach for Alliance. The allegation\u2014that an International player intentionally penetrated the Alliance player during contact in the water\u2014set in motion a series of complaints, reports and a subsequent lawsuit that have struck at the heart of an NGB looking for a restart during a pandemic that has claimed the lives of nearly 440,000 Americans and forced the suspension of athletic competition throughout much of the country.<\/p>\n [SPECIAL REPORT: When Water Polo Play Becomes Sexual Abuse<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n Ramsey cited in a deposition last year that Sicard properly forwarded all reports to the U.S. Center for SafeSport, which has been the\u00a0 clearing house for alegations of athlete abuse at all U.S. NGOs since March 2017. According to Morgan Stewart<\/strong>, a partner at Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, Ramsey declined to immediately notify local police about the allegations, a potential violation of the mandated reporter law in place in California since 1980.<\/p>\n In an SW interview last month, Ramsey presented his timeline of USAWP\u2019s actions regarding Hojreh\u2019s alleged abuses.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t want to get into the details of that other than to say we had no allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct from Bahram Hojreh prior to the US Center for SafeSport in January 2018 informing that he was a defendant,\u201d he said. \u201cTwo months later, the Los Alamitos Police Department arrested him. Up to that, there were no allegations.\u201d<\/p>\n [On The Record with USA Water Polo\u2019s Chris Ramsey: Present, Past, Future<\/em><\/a>]<\/p>\n It was USAWP\u2019s decision to forgo contacting Orange County law enforcement in July 2017 that convinced Stewart\u2019s firm to include USAWP in its civil suit against Hojreh.<\/p>\n This is not the first time the USAWP and its chief executive stand accused of ignoring alleged incidents of abuse. A story last December<\/a> in the Orange County Register alleges that Ramsey and his organization did not effectively respond to reports of repeated sexual harassment by Perry Korbakis<\/strong> against a female referee.<\/p>\n In an interview last December, Stewart maintained that Ramsey\u2019s and Secord\u2019s depositions not only confirmed that they failed to respond properly in 2017 to allegations against Hojreh, but that their admissions altered his firm\u2019s strategy.<\/p>\n \u201cOur cases have been around for almost two years now, and it wasn’t until Chris Ramsey and Christy Sicard testified within the last 60 days that we named them [as defendants],\u201d he said in a telephone conversation. \u201cIt became so clear and so apparent that their failures were at the heart of not stopping Hojreh from abusing kids.\u201d<\/p>\n This is an explosive allegation, one consistent with the aggressive approach of Stewart\u2019s Irvine, California-based firm who bill themselves as \u201cAMERICA\u2019S LEADING SEXUAL ABUSE LAW FIRM\u201d.<\/p>\n In the same interview Stewart leveled another accusation: that the effort to cover up the Hojreh allegations by not alerting local authorities was due to USAWP\u2019s drive to build a new training and competition venue in partnership with the City of Irvine in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n That partnership represents the crowning achievement of Ramsey\u2019s career. USA Water Polo has been determined to finalize a deal for the new aquatics center, and, according to former USAWP board chair Richard Foster <\/strong>(1990-1996, and 2000-2006) a new pool in Irvine has been Ramsey\u2019s desire since he was hired to lead the organization more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n Richard Foster, IHSOF, USAWP Hall of Fame member<\/p><\/div>\n Stewart speculated that negotiations with the City of Irvine were so vital to the organization\u2019s future\u2014and Ramsey\u2019s legacy\u2014that mention of an abuse investigation against a USAWP zone board member would impact the pending agreement. He said that USAWP declined to detail how the organization handles incidents of sexual abuse\u2014an important consideration, Stewart believes. As partners in a facility that will require these sorts of protections, it\u2019s reasonable to expect this would be a point of discussion.<\/p>\n \u201cHowever\u2014and we\u2019ve got this through public access records request via Irvine\u2014they\u2019ve been in communication for months, if not a year, with the city manager, the city council,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cDuring that time, they\u2019re telling the city what a great organization [they are], how they\u2019re going to develop this. Not once do they mention in any document Hojreh.\u201d<\/p>\n Liability is another open question for Ramsey and his board. Stewart, lead attorney on a number of sexual abuse cases, was dismissive of the insurance coverage that USAWP carries to satisfy claims like those filed by his firm. He claims that USAWP, currently with 38,000 members, is \u201cdrastically underinsured.\u201d The $2\u20133 million in USA Water Polo\u2019s coverage is dwarfed by that of school districts of similar size\u2014coverage that might provide as much as $25 million in the event of a judgment in an abuse lawsuit.<\/p>\n Stewart alleges that the determination to carry so little insurance was deliberate.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my view, and my argument would be\u2014obviously I\u2019d have to prove this\u2014USA Water Polo\u2019s a non-profit, they figure they don\u2019t have sufficient assets to go after.\u201d<\/p>\n Christian Deputy<\/strong>, Chief Sales Officer for The Buckner Company, USAWP\u2019s new insurance broker, clarified how much insurance is necessary to provide SAM (Sexual Abuse and Molestation) coverage necessary in today\u2019s youth athletics market.<\/p>\n \u201cIn addition to their own histories and the size of the organization, [it’s determined by] the amount of assets that they have, the amount of budget they have available,\u201d he said in a recent telephone discussion. \u201cAll of those variables come into a discussion and analysis of what\u2019s appropriate for that organization. What do they need to protect, how many people are involved in the organization?\u201d<\/p>\n Deputy added that the amount and cost of coverage required is determined by the marketplace, so suggesting that USAWP is underinsured is speculative at best.<\/p>\n \u201cSAM is [provided by] a very narrow niche of insurance companies willing to take on that risk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A critical point of the civil suit is that, due to Ramsey and Sicard\u2019s decision to not contact law enforcement immediately, they were in violation of the SafeSport mandates, and may have been under investigation by the organization.<\/p>\n Chris Ramsey left and Dan Klatt. Photo Courtesy: Jun Tolibao\/USAWP<\/p><\/div>\n Ramsey has denied these allegations, saying he complied with the SafeSport reporting requirements. In prosecuting the civil suit, Stewart makes the claim that not only did the USAWP CEO fail in his responsibility to protect his members, he subsequently lied about this to City authorities in Irvine and to Senators Richard Blumenthal<\/strong> (D-Connecticut) and Jerry Moran<\/strong> (R-Kansas) who chaired a bipartisan inquiry into abuse of American athletes.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem isn\u2019t that they just do that with the City of Irvine; they did it to the United States Senate,\u201d Stewart said. In February 2018, Ramsey claimed to \u201creport everything\u201d to Senators Blumenthal and Moran. Yet it had been six months since Hojreh was reported to SafeSport, and he was not mentioned.<\/p>\n \u201cRamsey writes in February 2018 to Blumenthal and Moran: \u2018Senators, we report everything.\u2019 Except for that thing you didn\u2019t report six months ago!\u201d, Stewart scoffed. \u201cYou\u2019re making representations to the City of Irvine and the U.S. Senate and you\u2019re not mentioning the huge fact of \u2026 an abuser in our ranks\u2026. [Hojreh] was on our regional board, and we\u2019re not going to say a word about it?\u201d<\/p>\n Foster, the former board president, has been highly critical of Michael Graff<\/strong><\/a>, his successor, and the pick of Ramsey to lead the organization. During the tenure of Foster and Bruce Wigo<\/strong>, his executive director, USAWP also dealt with a serious allegation of sexual abuse against Randy Dimacali<\/strong><\/a> in 2003 that came toward the end of Wigo’s term.<\/p>\n Citing the procedures of USA Swimming, which at that time had its own cases of abuse to contend with, Foster said he and Wigo took the position of complete transparency. If there was an allegation of abuse by a coach, they would immediately suspend that person.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to shed as much light as we can to make it public, and we want our coaches to know that we\u2019re not going to tolerate this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fourteen years later, Foster, sued by former USA Swimming National Team member Dagny Knutson <\/strong>for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud<\/a>, remains defiant about his decision in this instance. \u201cWe said: \u2018We don\u2019t care. If they want to sue us for not following those rules, we don\u2019t care,\u2019\u201d declared Foster. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be as supportive to the players as we can.\u201d<\/p>\n He then put the onus on the USAWP board to make the changes necessary to correct the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s beyond me to believe that the board didn\u2019t know about this. And if they didn\u2019t, it\u2019s total malfeasance of the organization,\u201d<\/p>\n![\"#WaterPoloTough\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/WaterPoloTough-700x500.jpg\")
Allegations of past abuse come back to haunt Ramsey and his organization<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"Bahram](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/ocr-l-coach-0405_02-700x500.jpg\")
Cover-up involving a new USAWP facility in Irvine?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"foster_Jan21\"](\"https:\/\/vmrw8k5h.tinifycdn.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/foster_Jan21.jpg\")
Is USA Water Polo underinsured?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Who\u2019s telling the truth?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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A voice from the past weighs in<\/strong><\/h3>\n