(New York) American bobsledder Aja Evans, bronze medalist in two-man bobsleigh at the 2014 Winter Olympics, has filed a complaint of sexual assault against an American team doctor, who refutes these accusations, several media reported Thursday .
In her complaint, filed Wednesday, she accuses a chiropractor from the American delegation, Jonathan Wilhelm, of having assaulted her for more than a decade, specify ESPN and the Times Uniona daily newspaper in Albany, New York.
“The repeated touching and sexual assault that I suffered at the hands of John Wilhelm damaged me physically and emotionally, to the point of experiencing chronic anxiety and falling out of love with my sport,” says the athlete. in a press release cited by the Times Union.
Aja Evans also targets the clinic run by Wilhelm as well as the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the American Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
The chiropractor categorically rejected these accusations, “unfounded allegations,” his lawyer, Ryan Stevens, said in a statement cited by ESPN. “At no time did the Dr Wilhelm committed the vile and sickening acts of which Mme Evans now claims they started over a decade ago,” he added.
In her complaint, Aja Evans says she was the victim of sexual assault by the caregiver on multiple occasions between 2012 and 2021. She also accuses him of having taken a photo of her and filming her while she was partially nude at the Olympic Training Center in Lake Placid, New York, between 2012 and 2022.
The complaint accuses the USOPC and the Bobsleigh Federation of failing to protect her or taking her word seriously.
The bobsledder’s lawyer, Michelle Simpson Tuegel, is also counsel for more than twenty women engaged in civil proceedings against Larry Nassar, the former doctor of the American Olympic gymnastics team who was sentenced in total to more than of 100 years in prison after pleading guilty to sexual assault against former patients.
Interviewed by ESPN, Me Simpson Tuegel said the two cases were “eerily similar.”
Last November, Aja Evans was suspended for a period of two years for failing to submit a sample for a doping test in March 2022. According to his complaint, notes the Times Unionshe gave up contesting this sanction due to her “exhaustion linked to these repeated attacks”.