By Aikman Fang (@AikmanFang) – Spear Reporter
The federal trial of Scott Shaw, SJSU’s former head athletic trainer, began earlier this week at the Robert F. Peckham Federal Courthouse, a couple of minutes from the campus he is accused of sexually abusing more than two dozen female student-athletes.
Shaw faces six misdemeanor counts of depriving female athletes of their civil rights under the color of law by groping their breasts or buttocks during physical therapy treatments from 2009 to 2020. Each count carries up to a year in prison.
This scandal led to the resignation of former university president Mary Papazian, and former athletic director Marie Tuite which ignited a federal investigation that cost the university millions in legal settlements, according to USA Today.
The trial comes three years after a USA Today investigation, published in April 2020, first revealed the allegations against Shaw. The story is now listed among the evidence the prosecutors may bring up at his trial.
As many as 13 former SJSU student-athletes may testify against Shaw, according to the government’s proposed witness list. This includes the four victims behind the charges and nine others – for whom the statute of limitations has expired – who claimed Shaw sexually assaulted them more than a decade ago.
For many of the victims, it will be their first time speaking publicly about the incidents.
The victims, some of whom are in their 30s, said they are committed to seeking justice against Shaw, a man who managed to maintain his position within the university for an additional 10 years when accusations first came up, according to the Mercury News.
University leadership botched investigations and failed to address allegations properly that date back to 2009. 17 members of the SJSU’s swimming and diving team told head coach, Sage Hopkins, that Shaw touched their breasts, buttocks, and pelvic regions, often below their undergarments, when they sought treatment for other areas of their bodies.
Hopkins compiled a file of the athlete’s accounts and sent it to the University Police Department at the time of the original investigation, but no arrests were made.
Hopkins re-reported the allegations and continued to talk with administration, even after SJSU initially did not take action against Shaw. He claimed that university officials “retaliated against him and his team for speaking out against Shaw.”
Steve O’Brien, a former member of the athletic department, gave an example of the alleged retaliation. He claimed Tuite told him to discipline Hopkins and another employee, and he told USA Today he believed the instructions retaliated against Hopkins for re-reporting the allegations. O’Brien was fired for disobeying the order.
SJSU eventually settled in a retaliation suit with Hopkins last year. Hopkins will receive a $225,000 payment, according to The Mercury News. Hopkins said the settlement was “amicable.”
Hopkins’ persistent reporting of Shaw’s misconduct to authorities would lead to a series of outside investigations and criminal charges. It is a possibility that he will be called to the witness stand since he is on the prosecution’s witness list, which also includes former SJSU athletic director Tom Bowen, Rosalina Calderon, a human resources officer, and Justin Celano, a campus police sergeant.
Prosecutors anticipate calling up to 20 medical professionals, some of whom worked with Shaw, to show he knew and ignored proper protocols to show Shaw willingly violated the athletes’ right to “bodily integrity.” Four former Spartans’ men’s basketball players may also be called to demonstrate how Shaw’s treatments of male athletes differed from these of women, court records show.
In a statement acknowledging the case against Scott Shaw, San Jose State’s new President, Cynthia Teniente-Matson, said, “We anticipate testimony that will likely be painful and difficult to digest. We hope that the legal process and eventual outcome will bring some measure of healing to those who were harmed.”
