Sexual Abuse Victims of Coach Conrad Avondale Mainwaring Now Have One Year to File a Lawsuit
Fighting For Important Causes In State And Federal Courts
State College, PA – August 6, 2019
State College institutional sexual assault lawyer Andrew Shubin, an attorney who represents survivors of clergy, school, and physician child sexual abuse, and whose work on behalf of child abuse victims was featured in Happy Valley, a documentary about the Penn State / Sandusky scandal, has announced that he is now working to hold Coach Conrad Avondale Mainwaring, a former Olympic track athlete and coach, and the powerful Universities that enabled him, accountable for the serial molestation of children that is being alleged by dozens of victims dating back decades. Shubin noted that “the recent filing of a California criminal complaint charging Mainwaring with Sexual Battery by Fraud of a UCLA student [insert charging document], is an important if not long overdue first step in seeking justice for Mainwaring’s victims” but cautioned that “real accountable must include an aggressive and comprehensive investigation of institutions that enabled him to access children and secure the trust of their parents.” Shubin added: “We give coaches, churches, and schools, our children and trust, and they give pedophiles access to an unending stream of children, and the time, space and cover to groom and abuse them.”
According to civil rights lawyer Shubin, “the announcement of the criminal filing has inadvertently re-traumatize abuse survivors and their families” and he urged “that they be treated with sensitivity, dignity, and respect, and provided access to professional resources, including experienced legal counsel and mental health providers that specialize in the treatment of sexual assault trauma.” According to Shubin: “The focus has to be on the victims and their rights, not on the reputation of an institution. The focus has to be the pursuit of justice for these victims and accountability.”
Shubin’s investigation, and recent news coverage, revealed that Mainwaring had long associated himself (formally and informally) with universities and their branding, mostly recently in California, where he is alleged to have abused children under the guise of training them to be elite track and field athletes or football players. In New York, Mainwaring worked at Syracuse and Colgate Universities in the 1980’s. Shubin, who is working with New York abuse victims, noted that recent changes in New York’s civil child abuse statute of limitations provides an opportunity for those who were sexually abused in New York, even decades ago, a one-year window to file civil abuse claims.