- Joined
- Jan 23, 2009
Why would a white middle class Kansas City family even need to raise funds for a funeral? Was Coughlin himself so poor or in debt? Legal expense? AFIAK nobody pressed charges against the estate and giving the mounting evidence it is unlikely the estate will sue any of the accusers for slander?
Is USFS being sued, like USAG/USOC are being sued by Nassar survivors?
Who knows what they need the money for. There was a Kansas senator, Jerry Moran, who said a few words about reforming SafeSport but I don't know if the Coughlin family used their money for lobbying, or if the senator did it out of his own volition.
John Coughlin's family got more than $40,000 from the figure skating community from over 600 donors. You only have to scroll down the list to see who his supporters were.
They included elite skaters or former elite skaters like:
- Caroline Zhang and Grant Hochstein
- Polina Edmunds
- Angela Nikodinov
- possibly Alexa Scimeca's family
- Nathan Bartholomay
- Caydee Denney
He even got donations from skating organizations.
- Midwest Figure Skating Council
- Silver Blades Figure Skating Club Of Greater Kansas City
- Kansas City Figure Skating Club
- St. Joseph Figure Skating Club
- Heartland Figure Skating Club
- Team Delaware Synchronized Skating
There was also a petition with 5,000+ signatures to reform SafeSport to basically protect John and people like John.
https://www.change.org/p/diana-dege...-coughlin-advocacy-for-figure-skating-coaches
There was also some professional skating coach organizations, I can't remember what their name was now, but they made a public statement that in the future, if any situation like John Coughlin's arose, they would side with the accused coach.
Just look at that. All of that.
That is what a young girl is up against if she tells the public that an established, beloved male skater has sexually abused her.