Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors said in an emotional interview Monday that her former coach "stole so much" from her in the decade she alleges he sexually abused her starting when she was a minor.
Kukors, 28, told The Associated Press that she can't get the time back but she can speak out so others recognize the signs of people grooming others for abuse or similar misconduct.
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Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors said in an emotional interview Monday that her former coach "stole so much" from her in the decade she alleges he sexually abused her starting when she was a minor.
"If I save one person who's currently being groomed. If I have a dialogue with one parent about something that they think is alarming with their child and their coach. If I could do that, this is worth it — as painful as it is," Kukors said through tears in New York.
Hutchison, 46, a former Olympic assistant coach, has denied the allegations and has not been charged with a crime. Federal and local investigators searched his Seattle apartment last week for computers and other devices.
Hutchison said the two were in a relationship after the 2012 Olympics, when she was 23 and he was 41.
She declined to say what USA Swimming officials or others should have done differently and what policy changes she hoped to see, saying she doesn't have the emotional capacity for that yet.
Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors talks during an interview, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
"If I save one person who's currently being groomed. If I have a dialogue with one parent about something that they think is alarming with their child and their coach. If I could do that, this is worth it — as painful as it is," Kukors said through tears in New York.
Kukors alleges Sean Hutchison, who began coaching her at a swim club near Seattle, groomed her for sexual abuse when she was 13, started touching and kissing her when she was 16 and engaging in sexual activity when she was 17. The Seattle-area native also told authorities that he took thousands of sexually explicit photos of her as a minor.
Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors cries during an interview, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Hutchison, 46, a former Olympic assistant coach, has denied the allegations and has not been charged with a crime. Federal and local investigators searched his Seattle apartment last week for computers and other devices.
An email to Hutchison's Seattle attorney seeking comment Monday wasn't immediately returned.
"At no time did I ever abuse Ariana Kukors or do anything with her that was not consensual," he said in a statement last week. "I absolutely deny having any sexual or romantic relationship with her before she was old enough to legally make those decisions for herself. Prior to that time, I did nothing to 'groom' her."
Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors cries during an interview, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
Hutchison said the two were in a relationship after the 2012 Olympics, when she was 23 and he was 41.
Kukors, the 2009 world champion in the 200-meter individual medley who placed fifth in that event at the 2012 Games, said Monday that someone who began forming a relationship with her when she was 13 could not possibly say it was consensual.
She has described "an extensive, abusive and incredibly manipulative relationship" that spanned a decade. "Somebody manipulating and taking control and power and ownership of you is wrong," she said.
In a roughly 20-minute interview, Kukors described her long process of healing, the overwhelming support she has received since she went public last week and her desire to help educate others about potential abuse.
Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors cries during an interview, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
She declined to say what USA Swimming officials or others should have done differently and what policy changes she hoped to see, saying she doesn't have the emotional capacity for that yet.
USA Swimming, the national governing body for swimming, hired a private investigator to look into rumors of a relationship between her and Hutchison in 2010. The organization said it closed the investigation without finding any misconduct after the two and others denied the relationship.
Some have criticized the investigation as insufficient. It followed other sex abuse scandals in the sport that led to lifetime bans.
Kukors said she lied when a private investigator called her to ask about her interaction with Hutchinson because she was scared. "When I think back on it now, the truth wasn't an option," she said.
Former Olympic swimmer Ariana Kukors listens during an interview, Monday, Feb. 12, 2018 in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)
USA Swimming said last week that Kukors' public statement was the first time it learned of the underage abuse allegations and that "our hearts go out to Ariana and the difficulty she has gone through to reach this point of disclosure."
An organization spokeswoman did not immediately return an email and call seeking comment Monday.
Kukors, who is now married and credits her husband for helping her through the ordeal, said she hoped to underscore the way predators gain the trust of victims who don't know what's happening to them.
Through that process, Hutchison also gained the trust of her parents so they looked at him as a figure of authority they trusted, she said.
"Everyone in our community praised him for the work that he was doing," Kukors said.
She said she hopes in time to have a dialogue so people understand that "it's not appropriate for a coach to be alone in a hotel room behind closed doors with their athlete, no matter how good they are, no matter what path they're on. It's completely inappropriate. And I hope that because of that we're just more aware."
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harvey Weinstein's landmark New York sexual assault conviction was thrown out by an appeals court Thursday, and most of the dozens of civil cases filed against him since he became a central target in the #MeToo movement in 2017 have either been settled or dismissed.
That doesn't mean the 72-year-old disgraced movie mogul and his lawyers don't have plenty of court time ahead. Prosecutors in Manhattan say they plan to retry him, and several other cases remain unresolved.
Here's a look at those, and at some that have come and gone:
Weinstein was found guilty in 2022 in Los Angeles of the rape and sexual assault of Italian actor and model Evgeniya Chernyshova, and his 16-year sentence in that case will keep him in prison despite the reversal of the New York verdict.
Of the four women he was charged with assaulting in California, this was the only case that led to a conviction. Weinstein insisted at his sentencing that he never met her.
An appeal looms there too, and Weinstein's attorneys will make the same arguments as in the New York case about witnesses testifying to assaults he was not charged with.
Los Angeles prosecutors said Thursday that the judge at their trial acted well within state law in the testimony she allowed. Weinstein's lawyers must make their case in a filing by May 20.
Weinstein could be brought to California to serve the sentence in that case, or he could remain behind bars in New York while awaiting retrial.
Chernyshova also is the plaintiff in one of the last remaining civil lawsuits against Weinstein. Just weeks after the guilty verdict, she sued over emotional distress from her 2013 rape at a Beverly Hills hotel.
Weinstein's attorneys argued at his sentencing in the criminal case that the lawsuit constituted proof that she lied on the stand when she said she sought no financial gain from coming forward with her allegations.
The civil case remains in its early stages. At a hearing Thursday, just a few hours after the New York decision was revealed, a judge tentatively granted Chernyshova's request that it be put on hold while the California criminal appeal plays out.
Like other actors including Ashley Judd and Mira Sorvino, Julia Ormond, briefly a major star in the 1990s, has alleged in a lawsuit that Weinstein railroaded her career.
Ormond, who appeared opposite Brad Pitt in “Legends of the Fall” and Harrison Ford in “Sabrina,” filed her suit in New York last October. In it she accused Weinstein of committing sexual battery against her in 1995 and then working to tarnish her reputation in Hollywood.
The newest of the known lawsuits against Weinstein, it came years after most of the others. Ormond took advantage of New York's Adult Survivors Act, which allowed a temporary window for people who allege sexual assault to file past the state’s normal deadlines.
Weinstein's lawyers denied her allegations.
Judd, who became a hugely important figure in the takedown of Weinstein and larger #MeToo movement when she went on the record in the original New York Times story about his sexual misconduct, sued him in 2018. Like Ormond she alleged Weinstein did major damage to her career by smearing her to other filmmakers in retaliation for rejecting his sexual advances.
Her lawsuit, which came after director Peter Jackson said Weinstein told him 20 years earlier that Judd was a “nightmare” to work with when Jackson was considering her for a major role in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, accused Weinstein of defamation, sexual harassment and violating California’s unfair competition labor law.
A federal judge in 2019 threw out the sexual harassment claim, saying Weinstein and Judd, as a producer and actor discussing prospective projects, didn’t have the kind of employment relationship that the law covers. California lawmakers later expanded the statute to explicitly cover producers and directors.
Judd’s lawsuit is now on long-term hold. A judge administratively closed it last year, but it can be reopened at any time if her legal team makes a motion.
Some suits were thrown out, including one from actor Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein's earliest and most prominent accusers. She alleged he engaged in racketeering when he worked to silence her and harm her career before she publicly accused him of rape, which he has denied.
McGowan served as her own attorney in the case after firing her lawyers. In 2021, a federal judge dismissed the suit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
The vast majority of lawsuits against Weinstein, by women from office assistants to successful actors, were brought to a close through a settlement in 2021 as part of the bankruptcy of his former film company, The Weinstein Co.
The agreement included a victims' fund of about $17 million for some 40 women who sued him. The amount was approved by a majority, but lawyers for some of them, including actor Dominique Huett, objected to it, calling the individual shares “pathetically meager” for the damage Weinstein did.
Also part of the settlement was former actor and screenwriter Louisette Geiss, the lead plaintiff in a Manhattan class action suit. She sued Weinstein in 2017, accusing him of attempting to force her to watch him masturbate in a hotel bathroom in 2008.
“In the end, you see that the judicial system is still not in the right place to take him down. It’s really society that takes him down," she told The Associated Press the year after the settlement.
The AP does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as all of the women named here have done.
FILE - Harvey Weinstein arrives at a Manhattan courthouse for jury deliberations in his rape trial, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, in New York. New York's highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
FILE - Harvey Weinstein arrives at the courthouse during jury deliberations in his rape trial, Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, in New York. New York's highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial.(AP Photo/Craig Ruttle, File)
FLE - A group of women who have spoken out about Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's sexual misconduct and who refer to themselves as the "Silence Breakers," face the media during a news conference at Los Angeles City Hall, Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020, in Los Angeles. New York's highest court on Thursday, April 25, 2024, has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello, File)
FILE - Former film producer Harvey Weinstein appears in court in Los Angeles, Oct. 4 2022. New York’s highest court has overturned Weinstein’s 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial. The Court of Appeals ruled Thursday, April 25, 2024 that the judge at the landmark #MeToo trial prejudiced him with improper rulings, including a decision to let women testify about allegations that weren’t part of the case. (Etienne Laurent/Pool Photo via AP, File)
FILE - Harvey Weinstein leaves a Manhattan courthouse after closing arguments in his rape trial in New York, Friday, Feb. 14, 2020. New York's highest court has overturned Harvey Weinstein's 2020 rape conviction and ordered a new trial. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)
