Ice dancer Mazingue faces inaction from authorities after rape complaint

[Sylvia]

Solene Mazingue shared this Mediapart article link today on X: https://x.com/SoleneMazingue/status/1853819001236840798

This article in French by Clement Le Foll (eta: https://x.com/lefollclement/status/1853842986016395695) is behind a paywall (Nov. 5, 2024) - Ice dancer faces inaction from authorities after rape complaint
In December 2023, French athlete Solène Mazingue reported being raped by an American athlete. Neither her coaches nor the federations concerned responded. Unable to get back on skates, she filed a complaint in April.

Après une plainte pour viol, une danseuse sur glace face à l’inaction des instances

En décembre 2023, l’athlète française Solène Mazingue dénonce un viol dont elle aurait été victime de la part d’un athlète américain. Ni ses entraîneurs ni les fédérations concernées n’ont réagi. Inc…

www.mediapart.fr

The atmosphere is seemingly relaxed at the Westin Hotel in Zagreb on December 9, 2023. After several days of competition, professional skaters from all over the world are unwinding. Among them, Solène Mazingue is experiencing this ...

Mediapart's mission is "The duty to investigate, the courage to reveal": https://www.mediapart.fr/qui-sommes-nous

ETA: https://x.com/mediapart/status/1853832939420749888

 

[Firedancer]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1853836038105354579

 

[Lanie]

My heart goes out to Solene. She's so brave. I am so sad she didn't get support but it is not surprising either.

 

[Desperado]

I am in awe of her courage.

 

[Hedwig]

we need to hold Marie-France accountable for her lack of action. I am horrified.

 

[Primorskaya]

we need to hold Marie-France accountable for her lack of action. I am horrified.

Yes it's about time the shit hit the fan in this particular school. One badly handled incident is one thing, this is now a pattern.

The fact that she was under the influence of her sleeping medication while being assaulted...It's making me think of the Gislèle Pélicot case many of you will have heard of, which is coincidentally being judged in court right now. I'm hoping for exemplary sentences in both cases.

 

[skatfan]

I am so appalled at this skating culture that protects abusers and rapists. She is brave to go public.

 

[Theatregirl1122]

In terms of actual jurisdiction for the crime, this would be prosecuted in Zagreb if it were to be prosecuted, correct?

 

[Hedwig]

I am so appalled at this skating culture that protects abusers. She is brave to go public.

If only it was only the skating culture... :-( We have had enough of women being called trash and considered playthings and have no rights.

This has got to fcking stop.

 

[Colonel Green]

In terms of actual jurisdiction for the crime, this would be prosecuted in Zagreb if it were to be prosecuted, correct?

By default, yes — on occasion states will claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over crimes committed by or against their citizens, but I’m not aware whether France would consider that.

Cases like this definitely pose a problem for criminal accountability, in that (with respect to Croatian authorities) an offence that involves zero Croatian residents is likely to be a very low priority.

we need to hold Marie-France accountable for her lack of action. I am horrified.

With respect to this, I’m not an expert in USFS rules by any means, but given that I’d assume she is an accredited coach with the US fed, if she indeed declined to report the charge she may be found in violation of her obligations. That would presumably require Solene to file a complaint against her, though.

 

[Nmsis]

By default, yes — on occasion states will claim extraterritorial jurisdiction over crimes committed by or against their citizens, but I’m not aware whether France would consider that.

France would definitly consider that.

 

[MacMadame]

With respect to this, I’m not an expert in USFS rules by any means, but given that I’d assume she is an accredited coach with the US fed, if she indeed declined to report the charge she may be found in violation of her obligations. That would presumably require Solene to file a complaint against her, though.

I am not sure if Solene needs to file a complaint but I am sure that not reporting this incident does violate the rules and she could lose her accreditation. If Solene has to file a complaint, I hope she does. And with every other organization that does accreditation that she belongs to.

 

[Debbie S]

With respect to this, I’m not an expert in USFS rules by any means, but given that I’d assume she is an accredited coach with the US fed, if she indeed declined to report the charge she may be found in violation of her obligations. That would presumably require Solene to file a complaint against her, though.

Marie-France is not accredited with USFS (Patrice, Romain, and Pascal Denis were the only IAM coaches I could find in the database) so officially USFS couldn't take action, but doesn't Skate Canada or Canadian version of SafeSport have a similar mandatory reporting rule? She could face consequences under that?

 

[Xallie]

if she indeed declined to report the charge

It's worse than that. It sounds like she said she would make a report, "to Skate Safe and to the leaders of Team USA", and then did nothing. And all this time, Solène thought she had, until April of this year, when she gave up on waiting on that, and filed her own report with the police in France.

France would definitly consider that.

That's very optimistic. They already don't prosecute the sexual crimes happening on their own territory, I very much doubt they'd take on more work voluntarily.

 

[overedge]

"Everyone has an obligation to report actual or suspected behaviours or actions of misconduct in accordance with this Policy."

Reporting Misconduct

skatecanada.ca

 

[cholla]

That's very optimistic. They already don't prosecute the sexual crimes happening on their own territory,

??? Of course they do when they are made aware of these crimes. The Pelicot, Depardieu, Bedos affairs only to name a few recent and famous ones are being prosecuted. Justice in France is too slow, that, yes, but saying that France doesn't prosecute sexual crimes on its territory is totally untrue.

I very much doubt they'd take on more work voluntarily.

You don't know that. Now that Mediapart has spilled the beans, Solène's case could be on the increase.

 

[Colonel Green]

Marie-France is not accredited with USFS (Patrice, Romain, and Pascal Denis were the only IAM coaches I could find in the database) so officially USFS couldn't take action, but doesn't Skate Canada or Canadian version of SafeSport have a similar mandatory reporting rule? She could face consequences under that?

"Everyone has an obligation to report actual or suspected behaviours or actions of misconduct in accordance with this Policy."

Reporting Misconduct

skatecanada.ca

Skate Canada/OSIC obviously do have mandatory reporting rules, but this case doesn’t involve either a Canadian complainant or a Canadian alleged perpetrator, nor did it occur at IAM, an accredited club that Skate Canada has jurisdiction over. I don’t think Marie-France would be considered to have obligations to them in this instance.

 

[cholla]

Skate Canada/OSIC obviously do have mandatory reporting rules, but this case doesn’t involve either a Canadian complainant or a Canadian alleged perpetrator, nor did it occur at IAM, an accredited club that Skate Canada has jurisdiction over. I don’t think Marie-France would be considered to have obligations to them in this instance.

It didn't occur at IAM, but it occured during a competition where IAM coaches were present (or am I mistaken?) Do mandatory reporting rules concern only what's happening on Canadian territory? Skaters and their coaches travel as a team but it doesn't count? Solène trained under MFD at the time and told her. Wherever they both were at the time, MFD was a Canadian citizen and a person of authority.

 

[farahfan]

Is there anywhere the article is available without the paywall? Thanks.

 

[Xallie]

??? Of course they do when they are made aware of these crimes. The Pelicot, Depardieu, Bedos affairs only to name a few recent and famous ones are being prosecuted. Justice in France is too slow, that, yes, but saying that France doesn't prosecute sexual crimes on its territory is totally untrue.

You don't know that. Now that Mediapart has spilled the beans, Solène's case could be on the increase.

Just to be clear, I'm French.

If you've followed the Pélicot case for example, you can't have missed the horrible statements by the accused's lawyers ("Il y a viol et viol", etc.), the fact that the judge seems very old-school, siding with the defense a lot (like when he decided the videos wouldn't be shown to the press, in direct contradiction of Gisèle's wishes), or the fact that out of 51 accused, about 35, iirc, deny the facts, despite the overwhelming video evidence.
(If you want to be horrified / informed, you can follow https://www.instagram.com/anna_margueritat/, a journalist who covers the trial and posts highlights.)

You reference Depardieu. Macron himself, in 2023, when we had already known for decades who Depardieu was, said: "He makes France proud".

Rape culture is alive and well in France.

And it is a fact that police discourage victims from pressing charges, that very few cases are prosecuted, that "sexist and sexual violences" are minimized. Come on now.

As for the French police taking on such a complicated case, that involves a French woman who resided in Canada and skated for Estonia, and a Russian man residing in the USA, with the crime taking place in Croatia... Unfortunately for Solène, I doubt this will go anywhere. So I doubt they will be spending time and resources on this, when they already don't bother with many simple cases.

 

[Colonel Green]

It didn't occur at IAM, but it occured during a competition where IAM coaches were presents (or am I mistaken?) Do mandatory reporting rules concern only what's happening on Canadian territory? Skaters and their coaches travel as a team but it doesn't count? Solène trained under MFD at the time and told her. Wherever they both were at the time, MFD was a Canadian citizen and a person of authority.

Skate Canada/OSIC reporting rules would typically apply to cases that those organizations have jurisdiction over. They don’t have any jurisdiction over either of the athletes involved in this; they do have jurisdiction over the training environment, but this didn’t involve the training environment.

Hence why Solene initially wanted to report to SafeSport, the organization that does have jurisdiction over Desyatov.

 

[jmtfti]

The article can be found on the figure skating Reddit and is also circulating on Twitter now -- I won't link directly for copyright reasons but it's easy to find both places.

The muddle of feds and jurisdictions involved in assault case after assault case is convincing me that, criminal court issues aside, skating needs an international Safe Sport program. And even given the confusion of who had what duty to which fed, I think a coach to whom a skater confides about an assault has some duty, and ought to follow through on a promise to report.

 

[Karen-W]

And even given the confusion of who had what duty to which fed, I think a coach to whom a skater confides about an assault has some duty, and ought to follow through on a promise to report.

Agreed. Just as a basic human being, given what Solene has shared in that article - that there were social media messages between she and Desyatov the day after - I cannot understand, for the life of me, why her coach or the Estonian team leader didn't make sure this was reported and that Solene was aided in knowing WHO she needed to pursue this with.

That the Estonian fed's excuse is "well, we only had a third party report, so we didn't act..." What-in-the-actual-f-*ck?! Did no one in the Estonian fed decide to reach out to Solene to ask for additional information?

Words cannot express the level of disgust I have with M-F - she is knowledgeable enough to know that the report needed to go to the USFS and SafeSport. I cannot believe she'd have worried much about pissing off the USFS by reporting a mid-level male ice dancer to them for potential sexual misconduct.

 

[Rukia]

Words cannot express the level of disgust I have with M-F - she is knowledgeable enough to know that the report needed to go to the USFS and SafeSport. I cannot believe she'd have worried much about pissing off the USFS by reporting a mid-level male ice dancer to them for potential sexual misconduct.

Yeah all this is so weird to me. She gains nothing from not reporting a skater she has no connection with in any meaningful way. Or maybe she was just too busy with all the other misconduct of iam skaters to bother with one not directly in her group.

 

[Nmsis]

As for the French police taking on such a complicated case, that involves a French woman who resided in Canada and skated for Estonia, and a Russian man residing in the USA, with the crime taking place in Croatia... Unfortunately for Solène, I doubt this will go anywhere. So I doubt they will be spending time and resources on this, when they already don't bother with many simple cases.

Given than nobody here has a clue about the materiality of the proofs, you're doing a lot of talking out of thin air.

 

[Karen-W]

Yeah all this is so weird to me. She gains nothing from not reporting a skater she has no connection with in any meaningful way. Or maybe she was just too busy with all the other misconduct of iam skaters to bother with one not directly in her group.

Or, as I think some people have posited elsewhere, maybe she thought Solene was confused and only imagined it because of the medication & brain damage. But, really... Desyatov apparently admitted to it in the SM messages, so... Why blow it off and not bother with telling Solene "you have to go to US SafeSport to report this..." at the bare minimum?

 

[kwanfan1818]

There is also overlaps with what Wagner described as Cughlin’s assault of her while she slept.

 

[barbarafan]

My heart goes out to Solene. She's so brave. I am so sad she didn't get support but it is not surprising either.

I am surprised.

 

[overedge]

Skate Canada/OSIC reporting rules would typically apply to cases that those organizations have jurisdiction over. They don’t have any jurisdiction over either of the athletes involved in this; they do have jurisdiction over the training environment, but this didn’t involve the training environment.

Hence why Solene initially wanted to report to SafeSport, the organization that does have jurisdiction over Desyatov.

The coach is a member of Skate Canada, and was a member of Skate Canada when the incident happened. That obliges them to follow Skate Canada policies, including the mandatory reporting policy.

And even if there was no legal obligation to report (although I'd argue there is), there is certainly a moral and ethical obligation to report, or at the very least to support a skater reporting an assault. What does it say about Marie-France, as a person in a position of responsibility, that one of her skaters told her about being assaulted, and she apparently did nothing about it?

 

[Colonel Green]

The coach is a member of Skate Canada, and was a member of Skate Canada when the incident happened. That obliges them to follow Skate Canada policies, including the mandatory reporting policy.

Which, again, does not (at least from my reading of it) seem to refer to matters over which Skate Canada (and Canadian authorities) have no jurisdiction. Neither Skate Canada nor OSIC, nor Canadian authorities, have any power to take actions against Desyatov. Nor does it seem to me that the policy means to govern how coaches are supposed to interact with other countries' agencies (e.g., SafeSport).

And even if there was no legal obligation to report (although I'd argue there is), there is certainly a moral and ethical obligation to report, or at the very least to support a skater reporting an assault. What does it say about Marie-France, as a person in a position of responsibility, that one of her skaters told her about being assaulted, and she apparently did nothing about it?

I never said otherwise.