Two female taekwondo athletes have sued in federal court, claiming they were sexually abused at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs by their coaches, Olympic gold medalist Steven Lopez, and his brother, Jean, a former U.S. Olympic coach.
Amber Means Randall and Heidi Gilbert, both of California, brought separate civil lawsuits in Denver U.S. District Court on Wednesday. Randall sued Steven Lopez and Gilbert sued Jean Lopez. They are each seeking more than $75,000 in compensatory damages.
Steven and Jean Lopez are two of three members of an Olympic taekwondo dynasty, having compiled numerous Olympic and world championship gold medals. All three brothers have been the subject of sexual misconduct claims, some reported as long ago as 2006. Earlier this month, Jean Lopez was banned from the sport after the U.S. Center for SafeSport found him guilty of a decades-long pattern of sexual misconduct with female athletes.
Randall first met Steven Lopez in 2003 when she was 13 and attending a Lopez taekwondo camp at the University of Houston. “(Lopez) told her she was pretty and that she would grow up to be tall,” the lawsuit filed by Prairie Village, Ks. attorney Rex Sharp says.
When Randall turned 14, her family moved to Houston from Spokane, Wash., so she could attend the Lopez Elite Taekwondo school in Houston. Three years later, when Steven Lopez was either 29 or 30 in 2007, he began taking then 17-year-old Randall on “dates.” He first sexually assaulted her after taking her to a movie in 2007, the lawsuit says.
When another coach asked her to perform oral sex on him, Steven Lopez intervened. But then he took Randall on a date and she performed oral sex on him. She was 17. She lost her virginity to Lopez in February 2008 and subsequently had sexual intercourse with him in several states during tournaments, the lawsuit says.
“(Lopez) was simultaneously having sexual relations with underage athletes at various tournaments around the world, including at the 2008 Olympic Games,” the lawsuit says. Lopez had sex with Steven Randall at the Olympic training center in Colorado Springs during the U.S. Taekwondo National Championships in 2008, it says.
Steven Lopez allegedly invited Randall to a party at a friend’s condo in June 2008 where she drank Gatorade and vodka before blacking out. She awoke in the bed of the condo’s owner, the lawsuit says. The owner told her that while she was passed out, Steven Lopez raped her. She had turned 18 a month earlier.
Jean Lopez was the U.S. Olympic Committee’s taekwondo coach at the 2002 Pan American Championships.
After Gilbert, then 20, won gold at the Pan-Am Games, coach Jean Lopez wrestled her to the ground and began “dry humping” her on the floor of a hotel room, the lawsuit says. The coach ejaculated in his pants and left the room, says Gilbert’s lawsuit filed by Denver attorney Daniel Lipman.
Following a competition in Germany, Jean Lopez allegedly sexually fondled Gilbert, slapped her face and choked her, the lawsuit says. She passed out on the floor, the lawsuit says. He also allegedly sexually assaulted her at the Olympic Training Center.
Source : Denver Post
