Former UK swimmers allege sexual misconduct by former coach Lars Jorgensen
Two former members of the University of Kentucky swim team Friday filed suit in U.S. District Court against former coach Lars Jorgensen, the university, former coach Gary Conelly and athletic director Mitch Barnhart, alleging a “toxic, sexually hostile environment” within the swim program.
The complaint alleges UK empowered Jorgensen “to prey on, sexually harass, and commit horrific sexual assaults and violent rapes against young female coaches and collegiate athletes who were reliant on him.”
The lawsuit was first reported by The Athletic, which revealed a series of allegations of sexual misconduct, including rape, against Jorgensen as part of a wider investigation of the former coach.
The Herald-Leader obtained a copy of the 93-page lawsuit Friday evening that alleges:
Jorgensen raped two members of the swim program and assaulted another. The complaint alleges Barnhart and Conelly, the former head coach of the swimming and diving program who retired in 2013, failed to take action despite being made aware after first hiring Jorgensen as an assistant coach of an allegation that Jorgensen engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with a swimmer while working in his previous job at the University of Toledo.
The two plaintiffs in the lawsuit allege multiple members of the UK swimming coaching staff and other athletic department administrators failed to investigate allegations of misconduct against Jorgensen and they were both discouraged by the university’s Title IX office from filing formal complaints.
The suit alleges Jorgensen “forcibly” raped one of the plaintiffs multiple times and forced the team member to perform oral sex.
It also alleges the coach raped and sexually assaulted a 22-year-old recent graduate, identified as Jane Doe II, who he recruited to serve as an assistant coach.
Jorgensen denied all the allegations against him when contacted by The Athletic.
Jorgensen was first hired by Kentucky as an assistant coach in 2012. He was promoted to head coach following Conelly’s retirement a year later.
On June 28, 2023, UK announced Jorgensen had resigned, one week after SwimSwam.com, a swimming-focused news website, reported Jorgensen had been suspended due to an NCAA violation.
The Herald-Leader reported in that August UK and Jorgensen had reached a financial settlement that paid Jorgensen $75,000 before his resignation. The settlement agreement, obtained by the Herald-Leader through the Kentucky Open Records Act, specified it did not constitute an admission of any “fault, liability, violation or wrongdoing” by either party.
The school’s response
Following the publication of The Athletic’s report, UK spokesman Jay Blanton on Friday afernoon released a statement to the Herald-Leader:
“Mr. Jorgensen is no longer an employee of the University of Kentucky. We do not, as a matter of policy, discuss specific personnel issues. However, it is important to note several things:
“1. We take concerns that are raised about the conduct of an employee or potential employee very seriously. We review any such concerns before a hire is made or an employee is retained.
“2. When issues between employees (or any members of our community) involve concerns over allegations of harassment or misconduct it is the policy and expectation of the institution that such activity be immediately reported to the appropriate officials for review, such as our Office for Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity (IEEO).
“3. Our Athletics Department takes those issues and those policies very seriously as the welfare and well-being of all of our employees and students is a priority.
“4. Finally, in such cases, a victim or complainant is reached out to a number of times during the course of a review. It is entirely up to the victim or complainant to decide whether they want to participate in such a review or not. Part of ensuring the well-being of our people is giving them the opportunity to decide whether they want to participate in an investigation of this kind.”
A Herald-Leader request to speak with Barnhart about the lawsuit had not been granted as of Friday night.
What the lawsuit alleges
The lawsuit describes five instances in which Jorgensen allegedly forcibly raped the swimmers at his home, including two separate occasions after Christmas parties.
In one instance involving the plaintiff identified as Jane Doe II, Jorgensen allegedly asked her to stay behind after the party to “help clean up.
“Once alone, Jorgensen grabbed Jane Doe II from the kitchen, dragged her into his bedroom, and forcibly raped her.”
The lawsuit said she “screamed and verbally told Jorgensen ‘no’ and to ‘stop,’ but Jorgensen did not stop his assault.
“The following morning, Jorgensen appeared at Jane Doe II’s door with flowers and chocolate, crying and promising that he would never assault her again,” the document states. “Despite his promise, from 2013 to 2016, Jorgensen repeatedly sexually assaulted Jane Doe II over the course of her tenure at UK.”
The lawsuit said San Jose State University’s Title IX coordinator “forwarded an e-mail to UK’s Title IX Office detailing two complaints against Jorgensen.
The lawsuit says one of those complaints was related to the alleged assaults involving Jane Doe II, but UK did not take any action.
According to the lawsuit, UK also received “credible reports” from a University of Toledo coach who had worked with Jorgensen, alleging the coach “was a sexual predator and could not be trusted around young women.”
The Toledo assistant coach, Mark Howard, had allegedly found a video filmed by a University of Toledo camera that showed Jorgensen having sex with a female swimmer “who appeared to be incapacitated,” the lawsuit states. Howard had reported that incident to the Toledo athletics department.
When Howard learned Jorgensen was being hired by UK, he exchanged emails with then-head coach Conelly the same day, reporting he had learned about a sexual relationship between a Toledo swimmer and Jorgensen and offering to talk with Conelly more by phone the following day.
The lawsuit says Conelly never called. Though Howard also sent an email to Barnhart, the UK athletics director did not respond, the suit claims.
The lawsuit says Conelly circumvented the university policy about reporting complaints about sexual assault and harassment by getting “the name and contact information from the young woman (ostensibly from Jorgensen) and unilaterally contacted her to confirm whether the sexual relationship was allegedly consensual.”
“As a result of the University of Kentucky’s decisions, the university enjoyed 10 years of success under the leadership of Coach Jorgensen, a man who transformed the university’s swim program from one of the worst in the country to one of the best,” the lawsuit claims. “But the price of success required athletes and employees to submit to Coach Jorgensen’s toxic and hostile environment, where female athletes were openly objectified, humiliated and taunted.”
The lawsuit accuses the defendants of negligence, among other things, and says the university violated the Title IX prohibition against sexual harassment, subjected the plaintiffs to a hostile work environment, failed to train and supervise its employees and is vicariously liable for Jorgensen’s behavior.
Jorgensen is also accused of battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The lawsuit asks for compensatory and punitive damages and other forms of relief, including “implementation of institutional reform and measures of accountability to ensure the safety and protection of young athletes and other individuals.”
Jorgensen is under investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport. That is a U.S. nonprofit organization created seven years ago to reduce the sexual abuse of athletes, particularly minors, in Olympic sports programs in the United States.
In November, Jorgensen was added to the organization’s disciplinary database. The SafeSport website said Jorgensen is subject to temporary restrictions, including “no unsupervised coaching/training, contact/communication limitation(s) and no contact directive(s).”
