PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Conrad Avondale Mainwaring, a former Olympian and track coach who sexually abused more than 50 boys and young men since the mid-1970s, was sentenced to 11 years in state prison after pleading guilty Thursday.
Just 16 miles from a summer camp where he abused nine boys in the 1970s, Mainwaring, 72, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecent assault and assault on children, two of whom were under 14 years old.
Mainwaring, who competed in track and field in the 1976 Olympics for Antigua (now Antigua-Barbuda) and later became a camp counselor and track coach, will receive credit for the three years he spent awaiting trial.
Upon his release, Mainwaring will be on probation for three years and must register as a sex offender in Massachusetts. She will also be prohibited from contact with minors in the state or with any of her victims.
The case against Mainwaring was launched after a two-year investigation by ESPN found 52 men who said they were sexually abused as children or young adults by Mainwaring from the 1970s to 2016. Nine of those men had attended Camp Greylock in Becket, Massachusetts. where they described how Mainwaring captivated them with his Olympic credentials and lured them to join his select “squad.”
Mainwaring then initiated sexual contact under the guise of mental training, insisting that they needed to control and manipulate erections and testosterone levels to maximize their athletic performance.
At Thursday's plea hearing in Berkshire County Superior Court, victims were given the opportunity to make statements to the court, either in person or via Zoom. A television was set up 14 feet in front of Mainwaring, who showed no reaction when one victim, David Sweet, addressed him in court and four others spoke via Zoom.
A camera was pointed at Mainwaring so the victims could see him while they spoke.
Also watching via Zoom were victims' families and dozens of other men who say they were abused by Mainwaring elsewhere over the past 50 years.
Sweet maintained his composure while remaining about 15 feet from Mainwaring, who was brought to court in a wheelchair. He was wearing his orange prison jumpsuit and a blue surgical mask covering a graying beard.
Sweet, now 60 and retired from a career in child protective services, said he was just 13 when Mainwaring began grooming and then sexually abusing him at Camp Greylock.
“He gave me a nickname. He called me 'Face,' because I guess I had a pretty face,” Sweet said, turning to Mainwaring. “Do you remember that, Conrad? I hope you remember this face for a long, long time.”
Like many other victims, Sweet told how their former coach lured them with promises that he could turn them into elite athletes.
“Sadly, Conrad Mainwaring derailed that dream for many of us,” Sweet said.
John Shapiro, appearing via Zoom from California, described how he had attended Camp Greylock for several years and said Mainwaring “started grooming and manipulating me when I was 11.”
Shapiro told the court that Mainwaring's abuse had continued for another 12 years, including while he attended Syracuse University. A support group has been created among men who were abused by Mainwaring, and Shapiro said he now knows “over 400 victims.”
“The trauma that we have all experienced has caused a host of horrible issues that we victims still suffer from: suicidal thoughts, depression, anxiety, a host of addiction issues, anger issues, trust and intimacy issues,” Shapiro said.
He described how family members have also suffered as a result of Mainwaring's actions, saying: “The pain and suffering of so many is beyond diabolical.”
He concluded by urging the judge and future parole board members to put Mainwaring “behind bars for as long as possible. Not just for justice, but for prevention.”
Michael Waxman, a 60-year-old trial lawyer from Maine, described how he was sexually abused when he was 13 at Camp Greylock. Waxman said he was excited to be under the wing of a former Olympian.
“I was so glad you chose me,” Waxman told Mainwaring in his statement, “and I would have followed you to the ends of the earth to make this dream come true. But what you did to me had nothing to do with my dream.” . ; “It was about satisfying your kinky sexual needs.”
Waxman said he is fine now, but added: “You stole part of my childhood, part of my innocence… and made me think badly of myself.”
Other victims who spoke out were Tym De Santo and Greg Allen, who also suffered abuse at Camp Greylock.
“Conrad, you sit before us, a disappointment to humanity and someone who lives a life of quiet desperation,” Allen said.
Said De Santo: “I am extremely grateful for this court's ability to deny Conrad Mainwaring the opportunity to perpetrate physical or emotional abuse of any kind against anyone, ever again.”
Throughout the proceedings, Mainwaring barely flinched and said little. He answered “yes” when the judge asked if the charges against him were accurate, and he uttered a barely audible “guilty” as each charge was read to him. He never addressed his victims.
Berkshire County District Attorney Timothy Shugrue called the victims heroes for speaking out.
“Secrecy is what enables these people,” Shugrue said after the hearing. “There are no secrets today.”
Although the statute of limitations on abuse at Camp Greylock expired decades ago, prosecutors were able to bring charges because the statute was frozen – or “broken” – when Mainwaring left Massachusetts for good in the late 1970s. The toll is designed to prevent Someone commits a crime in one state, moves away until the statute of limitations expires, and then returns without fear of prosecution. In this case, there is no record that Mainwaring continued to live in Massachusetts or returned after stopping work at Camp Greylock.
In June 2018, ESPN began investigating a tip that Mainwaring had sexually abused a 12-year-old boy in the 1970s at Camp Greylock and may have continued such activity into the 2010s while working as a private athletic trainer at Camp Greylock. The Angels. The tip led to a reporting effort that uncovered 52 victims on two continents and four states, from Massachusetts to Southern California.
During the ESPN report, Los Angeles Detective Sharlene Johnson began investigating an allegation that Mainwaring had sexually abused a man when he was a 20-year-old college student training under Mainwaring in 2016. The LAPD case turned up when Mainwaring was indicted there on a charge of sexual abuse. assault for fraud.
As that case slowly moved through the courts, ESPN in 2019 published the results of its investigation, which included details about the alleged abuse at Camp Greylock. That led Massachusetts State Police Detective Steve Jones to explore whether a case could be filed in Massachusetts. Jones began interviewing potential victims and, after leaving his position, turned the case over to fellow detective Ryan Dickinson.
In January 2021, a Berkshire County grand jury indicted Mainwaring on a dozen counts of indecent assault and battery, including three counts related to acts with children under 14 years of age. A month later, after Mainwaring pleaded no contest and was granted parole in Los Angeles. charge, he walked out of a Los Angeles County courthouse and was quickly arrested.
Both Dickinson and Jones were in court Wednesday to see Mainwaring plead guilty.
Mainwaring's abuse also sparked a civil lawsuit that names Syracuse University and Camp Greylock as defendants. The case was brought in 2020 by Shapiro and another man, Robert Druger, who said Mainwaring abused them when he was a Syracuse graduate student and worked at the school as a housing supervisor. Since then, several other men, including Sweet and De Santo, have joined the abuse lawsuit in Syracuse and/or Greylock.
ESPN found 22 men who described being abused by Mainwaring when he was at Syracuse. The lawsuit alleges, without any details, that Syracuse had received “credible reports of sexual abuse perpetrated by Mainwaring” but failed to act on them. The lawsuit also alleges that the university failed to adequately investigate Mainwaring at the time he was hired and allowed him to have “unrestricted and unsupervised” access to children and youth in a dormitory where he worked as a supervisor. In court Thursday, Sweet said he had reported Mainwaring to a Syracuse track coach, to no avail.
Syracuse has said it was not aware of any allegations against Mainwaring until ESPN published its report. In a statement responding to questions about the lawsuit at the time of its filing, the school said that “based on that exhaustive review, we have been unable to locate or identify any person who reported the alleged conduct to university officials when occurred”.
