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Penguins allegedly turned a blind eye to sexual harassment and assault |
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The Penguins organization is going to have to defend itself from some very serious allegations. There is a lawsuit recently filed against the Lemieux Group alleges sexual harassment and assault by former WB/S Clarke Donatelli. Donatelli resigned from coaching the WB/S Penguins on June 28, 2019 for personal reasons.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are accused in a lawsuit of hiring and retaining a coach they knew to be a serial sexual harasser who is alleged to have assaulted another coach’s wife during a team road trip.
Jarrod Skalde, a former assistant coach with the Penguins’ American Hockey League affiliate the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, alleges in a lawsuit filed Nov. 3 in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania that then Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Clark Donatelli assaulted his wife, Erin, when the three of them were in a car together during a team road trip in Providence, R.I.
The Pittsburgh Penguins are accused in a lawsuit of hiring and retaining a coach they knew to be a serial sexual harasser who is alleged to have assaulted another coach’s wife during a team road trip.
Jarrod Skalde, a former assistant coach with the Penguins’ American Hockey League affiliate the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins, alleges in a lawsuit filed Nov. 3 in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania that then Wilkes-Barre/Scranton head coach Clark Donatelli assaulted his wife, Erin, when the three of them were in a car together during a team road trip in Providence, R.I.
The details of what Donatelli did are gross and unacceptable.
Skaldes allege in their claim that Donatelli sexually assaulted Erin when they were briefly alone, first putting his arm around her, calling her “sexy” and pulling her close to him.
“Mrs. Skalde tried to fight off his sexual advances and told him to stop, but to no avail, as Mr. Donatelli escalated his attack, including reaching his hands into Mrs. Skalde’s shirt and repeatedly touching her breasts,” the lawsuit alleges.
“Mr. Donatelli resumed his sexual assault and battery of Mrs. Skalde once he had her in the darkness of the backseat. He not only groped her breasts again, but also forced his hands down her pants and touched her vagina, despite her efforts to push him away… Only later did Mr. Skalde find out what happened to his wife that night, shaking him to the core to learn that he had sat unknowingly in the front seat as his boss has sexually assaulted his wife.”
This happened in November and Donatelli kept coaching the team until his resignation in June after the season.
Skalde brought the issue up to Guerin seven months later. A normal human being in Guerin’s situation would have acted swiftly and taken immediate action. Instead, it seems like the opposite happened. Bill Guerin has some questions to answer about how he handled the situation and the Minnesota Wild should probably have an internal discussion about if they want to have him be one of the faces of their franchise
Skalde alleges that seven months later, when the incident was brought to the attention of Penguins’ assistant general manager Bill Guerin, whose duties included overseeing the NHL team’s AHL operation, Guerin told Skalde to keep quiet about the alleged assault. He alleges the NHL team has violated Pennsylvania’s whistleblower laws and fired him on May 5, 2020, because he complained to the team.
You might ask why did the Skaldes wait to report. It is a common questions asked about abuse victims. The answer is traumatic events often leave the victims feeling shame and blaming themselves. Embarrassment can also lead to inaction. Above all else victims sometimes fear retribution and retaliation.
The Skaldes didn’t immediately report the assault to the Penguins “because they had never experienced such an attack and were unsure what to do,” the lawsuit says. “The Skaldes also were concerned that reporting the conduct could lead to retaliation and create a crisis for the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in the middle of the season, causing harm to the team and its players through no fault of the Skaldes.”
The Skaldes were of course correct to be afraid of retribution for bringing up the sexual assault because Jarrod Skaldes was the only one out of 21 in hockey operations to be fired and it was not performance related
“Of the 21 employees handling hockey operations for the Penguins, team management selected only Mr. Skalde for termination – and told him it had nothing to do with his performance, which was ‘great,’” the lawsuit says. “But of course, Mr. Skalde also happened to be the only one who had complained about the unlawful sexual assault and battery of his wife by a Penguins coach.”
These are awful allegations, and if true, show an organization that talks a lot about class and respectability only to abdicate those traits when true adversity hits. Having an employee ask victims of sexual assault to keep things quiet is beyond unacceptable. Bill Guerin has some answering to do and so do the Penguins.
This is not OK and the team should be raked over the coals for this behavior.
Thanks for reading!
Pittsburgh Penguins Blogger • 
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