Ex-track coach Conrad Mainwaring will get 11-year jail sentence for serial intercourse abuse

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Conrad Avondale Mainwaring, a former Olympian and monitor coach who sexually abused greater than 50 boys and younger males because the mid-Seventies, was sentenced to 11 years in state jail after pleading responsible Thursday.

Simply 16 miles from a summer season camp the place he abused 9 boys within the Seventies, Mainwaring, 72, pleaded responsible to 14 counts of indecent assault and battery of boys, two of whom have been youthful than 14.

Mainwaring, who competed in monitor and subject on the 1976 Olympics for Antigua (now Antigua-Barbuda) and later turned a camp counselor and monitor coach, will obtain credit score for the three years he has spent awaiting trial.

Upon his launch, Mainwaring will probably be on probation for 3 years and required to register as a intercourse offender in Massachusetts. He additionally will probably be barred from contact with minors within the state or with any of his victims.

The case towards Mainwaring was launched after a two-year ESPN investigation discovered 52 males who stated they have been sexually abused as boys or younger males by Mainwaring starting within the Seventies and thru 2016. 9 of these males had attended Camp Greylock in Becket, Massachusetts, the place they described how Mainwaring wowed them together with his Olympic credentials and lured them to hitch his choose “squad.”

Mainwaring then initiated sexual contact underneath the guise of psychological coaching, insisting they wanted to regulate and manipulate erections and testosterone ranges to maximise their athletic efficiency.

On the plea listening to Thursday in Berkshire County Superior Courtroom, the victims have been offered the chance to current statements to the court docket, both in individual or by way of Zoom. A tv was arrange 14 toes in entrance of Mainwaring, who confirmed no response as one sufferer, David Candy, addressed him in court docket and 4 others spoke by way of Zoom.

A digital camera was directed at Mainwaring so the victims might see him as they spoke.

Additionally watching by way of Zoom have been households of the victims and dozens of different males who say they have been abused by Mainwaring elsewhere over the previous 50 years.

Candy remained composed whereas standing about 15 toes from Mainwaring, who was rolled into court docket in a wheelchair. He was sporting his orange jail jumpsuit and a blue surgical masks that coated a graying beard.

Candy, now 60 and retired from a profession in baby protecting companies, stated he was solely 13 when Mainwaring started to groom and later sexually abuse him at Camp Greylock.

“He gave me a nickname. He known as me ‘Face,’ as a result of I had a good-looking face, I suppose,” Candy stated, turning to Mainwaring. “Do you keep in mind that, Conrad? I hope you keep in mind this face for a protracted, very long time.”

Like a number of different victims, Candy recounted how their former coach lured them with guarantees that he might flip them into elite athletes.

“Sadly, Conrad Mainwaring derailed that dream for many people,” Candy stated.

John Shapiro, showing by way of Zoom from California, described how he had attended Camp Greylock for a number of years and stated Mainwaring “began grooming and manipulating me once I was 11.”

Shapiro advised the court docket that Mainwaring’s abuse had continued for one more 12 years, together with whereas he attended school at Syracuse College. A help group has developed amongst males who have been abused by Mainwaring, and Shapiro stated he is now conscious of “nicely over 400 victims.”

“The trauma that we have all skilled has brought about an array of horrific issues that us victims nonetheless undergo from: suicidal ideas, despair, anxiousness, an array of dependancy issues, anger points, belief and intimacy points,” Shapiro stated.

He described how members of the family even have suffered on account of Mainwaring’s actions, saying, “It is past diabolical, the ache and struggling of so many.”

He closed by urging the choose and future parole board members to place Mainwaring “behind bars for so long as attainable. Not just for justice, however for prevention.”

Michael Waxman, a 60-year-old trial lawyer in Maine, described how he was molested when he was 13 at Camp Greylock. Waxman stated he was excited to be taken underneath the wing of a former Olympian.

“I used to be overjoyed that you just selected me,” Waxman advised Mainwaring in his assertion, “and I might have adopted you to the ends of the earth to make this dream come true. However what you probably did to me had nothing to do with my dream; it was all about satisfying your perverted sexual wants.”

Waxman stated he is doing nicely now however added, “you stole a part of my childhood, a part of my innocence … and also you made me assume badly about myself.”

Different victims who spoke included Tym De Santo and Greg Allen, each of whom additionally have been abused at Camp Greylock.

“Conrad, you might be seated earlier than us a disappointment to mankind, and one who lives a lifetime of quiet desperation,” Allen stated.

Mentioned De Santo, “I am extraordinarily grateful for this court docket’s means to disclaim Conrad Mainwaring the chance to perpetrate bodily or emotional abuse of any sort on anybody, ever once more.”

All through the continuing, Mainwaring hardly flinched, and stated little. He answered “sure” when the choose requested him if the costs towards him have been correct, and he uttered a barely audible “responsible” as every depend was learn to him. He by no means addressed his victims.

Berkshire County District Legal professional Timothy Shugrue known as the victims heroes for talking out.

“Secrecy is what allows these individuals,” Shugrue stated after the listening to. “No secrets and techniques as we speak.”

Though the statute of limitations on the Camp Greylock abuse expired many years in the past, prosecutors have been capable of deliver expenses as a result of the statute froze — or “tolled” — when Mainwaring left Massachusetts for good within the late Seventies. Tolling is designed to forestall any individual from committing against the law in a single state, transferring away till the statute of limitations expires, after which returning with out concern of prosecution. On this case, there isn’t any document that Mainwaring continued to reside in Massachusetts or returned after he stopped working at Camp Greylock.

In June 2018, ESPN started investigating a tip that Mainwaring had molested a 12-year-old boy within the Seventies at Camp Greylock and may need continued such exercise into the 2010s whereas working as a non-public monitor coach in Los Angeles. The tip led to a reporting effort that uncovered 52 victims throughout two continents and 4 states, from Massachusetts to Southern California.

Throughout ESPN’s reporting, Los Angeles detective Sharlene Johnson started investigating an allegation that Mainwaring had molested a person when he was a 20-year-old school pupil coaching underneath Mainwaring in 2016. The LAPD case resulted in Mainwaring being charged there on one depend of sexual battery by fraud.

As that case slowly labored its method by the courts, ESPN in 2019 printed the outcomes of its investigation, which included particulars concerning the alleged abuse at Camp Greylock. That prompted Massachusetts State Police detective Steve Jones to discover whether or not a case might be made in Massachusetts. Jones started interviewing potential victims and, after leaving his place, handed the case over to fellow detective Ryan Dickinson.

In January 2021, a Berkshire County grand jury indicted Mainwaring on a dozen counts of indecent assault and battery, together with three counts involving acts with boys underneath the age of 14. One month later, after Mainwaring pleaded no contest and was given probation on the L.A. cost, he walked out of a Los Angeles County courthouse — and promptly was arrested.

Each Dickinson and Jones have been in court docket Wednesday to look at Mainwaring plead responsible.

Mainwaring’s abuse additionally prompted a civil lawsuit towards Syracuse College, filed in 2020 by Shapiro and one other man, Robert Druger, each of whom stated they have been abused by Mainwaring whereas he was a graduate pupil and labored on the faculty as a housing supervisor. Since then, a number of different males, together with Candy and De Santo, have joined the lawsuit. ESPN discovered 22 males who described being abused by Mainwaring when he was at Syracuse.

The lawsuit alleges, with none particulars, that Syracuse had obtained “credible reviews of sexual abuse perpetrated by Mainwaring” however did not act on them. The lawsuit additionally alleges the college didn’t correctly vet Mainwaring on the time he was employed and allowed him to have “unfettered and unsupervised” entry to boys and younger males in a dorm the place he labored as a supervisor. In court docket Thursday, Candy stated he had reported Mainwaring to a Syracuse monitor coach, to no avail.

Syracuse has stated it was unaware of any allegations towards Mainwaring till after ESPN printed its report. In an announcement responding to questions concerning the lawsuit on the time it was filed, the college stated that “primarily based on that exhaustive evaluation, we’ve got been unable to find or establish any particular person who reported the alleged conduct to college officers when it occurred.”