By Khalida Sarwari
Olympic champion Deena Deardurff-Schmidt is in San Jose today discussing personal allegations of sexual abuse by her former coach and allegations against USA Swimming.
Deardurff-Schmidt was a gold medal winner in the 1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany. Ed Vasquez, a spokesman for the Corsiglia, McMahon & Allard law firm in San Jose, said Deardurff-Schmidt planned, during a news conference, to discuss being molested by her former swim coach Andrew King repeatedly over a period of four years starting at the age of 11.
“She’ll talk about how the culture within the swim world has led to incidents like hers and why it’s easy for Andy King to get away with what he got away with for so long,” Vasquez said.
Deardurff-Schmidt is being represented by attorney Robert Allard, who filed an amended lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court on Thursday against USA Swimming, the governing body of competitive swimming in the U.S., Pacific Coast Swimming in Contra Costa County, San Jose Aquatics, which employed Andrew King, a Bay Area swim coach convicted of felony child
molestation who was sentenced to 40 years in prison, and King himself.
The lawsuit, initially filed in August 2009, seeks monetary damages for one of King’s victims, a 14-year-old female swimmer in San Jose. King turned himself in to San Jose police on April 2, 2009, after an initial complaint was made to the Police Department about inappropriate relations with the girl.
The news conference was scheduled for 11 a.m. at Corsiglia, McMahon & Allard Law Firm, Suite 620, 96 N. Third St.