Near the end of a federal trial in Orlando last week, a lawyer for the United States Tennis Association (USTA) got his chance to persuade jurors that the organization should not be punished further for the sexual misbehavior of a former coach.

Kevin Shaughnessy, a lawyer from BakerHostetler, argued that the USTA “did everything right in this case” through two years of litigation with Kylie McKenzie, a 25-year-old player who successfully sued the organization for failing to protect her from being sexually assaulted. 

As Shaughnessy spoke, the jury had already awarded $3million (£2.4m) to McKenzie in compensatory damages. After he spoke, it ordered the USTA to pay $6m more in punitive damages.

“The jury heard me,” McKenzie said in an interview after the decision.

She sued after the U.S. Center for SafeSport found it “more likely than not” that she had been assaulted by her coach, Anibal Aranda, when she was 19 and he was 34. Aranda has denied that. The USTA fired him, and as McKenzie’s litigation progressed it insisted that it had acted properly. Following the jury award, it promised to appeal — though it simultaneously said that it supported McKenzie. 

Amy Judkins, McKenzie’s lead lawyer in the trial, was incredulous at Shaughnessy’s argument. “This is why they need to be punished,” she said. 

Asserting that it had acted properly, she said, even after a jury found the USTA to have been negligent, showed that the court needed to send sporting organizations a firmer message: follow your rules, or else.

Watching all this from afar was another player, Steven Gould, who as a teenager was a victim of a sexual assault by a tennis coach. Years later, Gould held the USTA accountable for its actions through the legal system. 

Gould saw many similarities between the McKenzie case and his litigation experience, which confronted the USTA and its regional operation in Northern California for withholding complaints about a potentially dangerous coach.

“The pattern is identical,” said Robert Allard, an attorney for McKenzie and an advocate for sexual abuse victims in sports, who also represented Gould. “The USTA had information about a predator coach that they kept in their pocket.”

Gould was 13 when he was abused by Normandie Burgos, a prominent coach in Northern California known for training working-class immigrant children at half the cost of other top coaches. 

Before Burgos abused Gould, another player had told police that Burgos had demanded sex acts. When the boy refused, Burgos withheld gear and practice time and threatened to derail his college recruitment. After learning of the police investigation, the USTA suspended Burgos from participating in any USTA tournaments, events or programs, but kept that information confidential. The USTA said it took that course of action to not disrupt an ongoing investigation. But its decision also allowed Burgos to continue to train and prey on young boys.  

Burgos is now serving a 255-year prison sentence.

Gould’s case against the USTA resulted in a settlement well over $10million, according to three people briefed on the details of the agreement, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to reveal the confidential information publicly.

“They tried to make it like it was my parents’ fault — like, as good parents, they should have been more involved and noticed something,” Gould, who played tennis at the University of San Francisco and now coaches nearby, said in an interview last week. 

Gould now also works part-time with Allard as a victims’ advocate. He said that during depositions, USTA lawyers asked Gould about details of sex acts that Burgos had subjected him to.

“What was really upsetting to me,” he said, “was that an organization that says they are dedicated to youth tennis and safety and to growing this lifetime sport, they decide to not work with the victims but end up working against the victims.”

The USTA and its member sections have now allocated more than $20million in payments to Gould and McKenzie.

Allard, who has been involved in sexual abuse litigation that has led to overhauls at the national governing bodies for swimming and gymnastics, said he hopes the cases will lead to similar changes in leadership at the USTA. 

“My goal right now is to clean house at tennis,” Allard said. “I’m not going to stop until it’s done.”

Years of trial documents and depositions from McKenzie’s case show the USTA’s uncompromising approach toward defending itself, even as it grew more aware of what the judge and the jury ultimately viewed as its negligence.

It questioned McKenzie about her teenage sexual history. It questioned whether she had exaggerated the psychological effects of Aranda’s inappropriate touching and comments. The inquiries, USTA lawyers insisted during the litigation, were basic and necessary parts of its defense.

One of the USTA’s top lawyers, Staciellen Stevenson Mischel, cast aspersions on Allard to Pam Shriver, the Grand Slam doubles champion and television commentator who was also a victim of sexual abuse by a coach during her playing career. At the time of their conversation, Shriver was a potential witness for McKenzie. She ended up testifying at the trial.

Judge Paul G. Byron of the U.S. District Court of the Middle District of Florida warned after four days of testimony that the USTA ought to settle or face the verdict of a jury that he believed was on track to find in McKenzie’s favor. “I don’t know if you all want to talk settlement, but I recommend you do,” he said.

“I’m telling you, I’m reading the jury like you are, (it) does not look good for your side, I’m just saying.”

The USTA had said for months it did not believe a settlement was possible.

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As part of its safeguarding protocols, the USTA has a “Rule of Three,” requiring three sets of eyes for open interactions between players and coaches, either two adults and one child or one adult and two children. It also has cameras on training center courts, which are usually used for teaching purposes but can also provide an extra layer of security.

Few have questioned the value of the rules that the USTA has in place to try to prevent sexual assaults. In McKenzie’s case, the judge and jury ruled that it failed to follow them, deciding that even though McKenzie was 19 and no longer a minor, that the rule of three applied to teenagers and that she should not have been alone with her coach.

McKenzie is trying to revive her career on the ITF Tour (Buda Mendes/Getty Images)

Aranda often coached McKenzie alone, on a distant court at the USTA’s Orlando training center, in disregard of that Rule of Three. The camera system on the court was not working.

Moreover, a manager at the USTA had personal knowledge of misconduct by Aranda. After McKenzie came forward, the manager told investigators that years earlier, Aranda had grabbed her genitals at a New York City nightclub and tried to coerce her into a taxi. 

At the time, the woman did not hold a management position with the USTA, but she did when Aranda was coaching McKenzie. She testified during the trial, but The Athletic does not name victims of sexual abuse unless they voluntarily come forward. 

Judge Byron said during the trial that the law required her to tell someone what she knew. The law, he said, makes no distinction between an organization and a management-level employee. If a top employee knows information, then the organization does as well and can be held accountable for it.

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Lawyers for the USTA disagreed. In a statement after the verdict, Chris Widmaier, a spokesman for the USTA, said requiring a sexual assault victim to disclose her experiences “sets a new and unreasonable expectation for victims, one that will deter them from coming forward in the future. 

“Robbing a victim of the right to determine if and when to share their own story will have devastating implications that extend far beyond this case,” he said.

Kathy Rinaldi, a former top player who is the head of women’s tennis for the USTA, testified that had top officials at the organization known about Aranda’s prior behavior, he would not have been allowed to coach at the training center. 

When McKenzie reported Aranda, prompting his suspension and an internal investigation, another top coach told her the staff would cover for her if she wanted to tell other players that she had missed a few days because she had been sick. Judge Byron interpreted that as an attempt to keep a bad situation quiet. The USTA insisted that the goal was to protect McKenzie.

U.S. tennis legend Pam Shriver appeared as a witness (Imeh Akpanudosen/Getty Images for Up2Us)

Pam Shriver testified that an approach by one of the USTA’s key lawyers felt like it had a similar motive.

During the run-up to the trial, Mischel approached Shriver in a parking lot and told her to be wary of Allard, McKenzie’s lawyer. Mischel also told Shriver that she should be careful about what she said regarding sexual assault.

The move earned Byron’s scorn during the trial. 

“Ms. Mischel, you’re an attorney,” the judge told her during questioning. “You understand the rules about character evidence. Don’t volunteer personal opinions about other counsel. You knew not to do that.”

The moment landed with Gould. In 2010, a previous case against his future coach, Burgos, had resulted in a mistrial. Four years later, police received another complaint and opened an investigation. Gould and other players were not informed about it, even though the USTA banned Burgos from its events.

Before and after their settlement with Gould, USTA officials said they were following a request from law enforcement to protect the confidentiality of an ongoing investigation. Law enforcement officials testified that the safety of children always comes first in these cases. 

“If anyone had told us up front and definitively, a different decision (about coaching) could have been made,” Gould said. “But there was never any clear and concise communication.”

In 2014, Mischel wrote in an email to the leader of the Northern California section of the USTA that information about a police investigation of Burgos should remain confidential. 

Burgos started abusing Gould the following year.

(Top photo: Mike Stobe/Getty Images)