USTA Hires Lawyers to Investigate Handling of Sex Abuse Allegations

As the United States Tennis Association (USTA) navigates a federal lawsuit involving alleged sex abuse against a female tennis player, it has launched an official review of its safeguarding policies with the help of two high-profile lawyers.

In an announcement posted on the USTA’s website on Jan. 4, executive director Lew Sherr said the organization hired Mary Beth Hogan and David O’Neil from the law firm of Debevoise & Plimpton. Hogan’s background includes serving as an advisor for the International Council of Arbitration for Sport, and O’Neil is the former head of the criminal division at the Department of Justice.

Their work for the USTA will be a deep dive into how the organization protects its players. They’ll be tasked to look at the USTA’s “policies and procedures for preventing, reporting, and responding to reports of abuse, including sexual misconduct,” according to Sherr.

Although Hogan and O’Neil will have full access to employees, materials, and other information to make their assessment, their hiring is not related to investigating “any specific allegations of sexual misconduct,” Sherr stressed. “Federal law provides the U.S. Center for SafeSport with exclusive jurisdiction to investigate and resolve such allegations as they relate to participation in sport.”

Although Sherr acknowledged SafeSport, the independent agency established by the U.S. Olympic Committee six years ago to assist both elite facilities and clubs is responsible for any investigations, the hiring of the lawyers comes at a time of strife for the USTA.

USTA Sex Abuse Lawsuits

In March of 2022, Kylie McKenzie, a former star junior tennis player, filed a federal lawsuit in Florida, alleging sexual assault by her coach when she was 19, and the fallout has continued.

McKenzie, now 24, chose to go public with her story in hopes of both encouraging other sex abuse victims to speak out as well as to hold the USTA accountable for not protecting her.

McKenzie has accused her coach, Anibal Aranda, of assaulting her at the USTA National Campus in Orlando in 2018, and the lawsuit accuses the USTA of failing to disclose that Aranda assaulted a USTA employee three years before the incident happened to McKenzie. 

In an interview McKenzie gave to the New York Times soon after she filed the lawsuit, McKenzie detailed how she remembered Aranda holding her training sessions in remote areas of the center and touching her inappropriately while being close to her on the court. After Aranda’s behavior continued to escalate, McKenzie reported him to the USTA, spurring an investigation by SafeSport. 

It was not until much later, and only after being given access to the confidential SafeSport investigation, that McKenzie learned of the USTA employee’s experience with her former coach. The employee had kept silent concerning the incident, but once McKenzie filed a report, she came forward telling investigators Aranda groped her at a New York club. When she tried to leave the club, Aranda made a failed attempt to get into a car with her. 

After its investigation, including a discussion with the second victim, SafeSport ruled that it was “more likely than not” that Aranda had assaulted McKenzie. The USTA terminated Aranda.

Along with McKenzie’s federal lawsuit, the USTA is handling another SafeSport complaint. This one was filed by a former University of San Francisco tennis player. It involves Staciellan Mischel, the organization’s deputy chief legal officer.

In 2020, the player, Stevie Gould, won a lawsuit against the USTA over the failure of the organization to protect players from Normandie Burgos, a once prominent coach in California, now serving a 255-year prison sentence. 

In his new complaint, filed in October, Gould, now 23, included allegations concerning Mischel’s involvement with the Burgos sex abuse case and McKenzie’s case against Aranda.

Ten years ago, after a young player filed a police report accusing Burgos of sexual abuse, Mischel sent an email to the head of the Northern California section of the USTA stating that the information on a police investigation should remain confidential.

Burgos remained free to continue working with youth players until 2017, abusing others, including Gould. Gould won his lawsuit against the USTA in 2020.

Concerning McKenzie, Gould also included in the complaint information from Pam Shriver, the 22-time Grand Slam champion and sex abuse victim advocate who had been deposed as a witness for McKenzie in trial preparations last year. In the deposition, Shriver testified that Mischel warned her to “be careful” about public statements on sexual abuse in tennis. 

Gould contends Mischel’s actions, both in his and McKenzie’s cases, pose “a danger to young athletes.”

The USTA is not alone in relying on outside counsel to rectify its policies protecting tennis players from abuse. 

A year ago, the Women’s Tennis Association hired its first director of safeguarding, Lindsay Brandon, a lawyer whose experience includes working with the well-known sports attorney Howard Jacobs. Brandon was hired to oversee investigations into abuse complaints for the WTA and is creating a new “safeguarding code of conduct,” which will outline behavioral standards and establish procedures for everyone credentialed within the WTA environment to follow.

The WTA aims to publish its new code sometime this year.