George Gibney, the former Irish National and Olympic Team coach, is facing 79 charges relating to the alleged sexual abuse of four girls he coached in the 1970s and 1980s, US court records show.
Mr Gibney (77), was arrested on Tuesday after a Garda request was made to the US state department to extradite him to Ireland to face charges relating to alleged historical child sex abuse.
Legal filings lodged in the US district court show that Mr Gibney is accused of 78 counts of indecent assault and one count of attempted rape over the alleged sexual abuse of four girls and the alleged attempted rape one of the girls.
All four girls were minors, aged between eight and 15, and were coached by Mr Gibney at the time of the alleged abuse, according to the criminal complaint lodged with the US district court for the middle district of Florida (Orlando).
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Dublin District Court issued 79 warrants for his arrest on June 6th, 2023 covering each of the alleged offences, the 302-page court filing shows.
The complaint says that four alleged victims in the new criminal case against Mr Gibney were not part of the criminal proceedings brought against the former swimming coach in the 1990s when six people made complaints against him.
The filing says all four alleged victims made complaints to the Garda between 2020 and 2022 after the BBC podcast Where is George Gibney? was aired in 2020.
The complaints were made to the Garda on February 4th, 2021; August 2nd, 2021; September 29th, 2021; and July 20th, 2022, the court records show.
Mr Gibney is due to appear before a United States court next week.
A Garda investigation into a number of fresh allegations that Mr Gibney sexually abused children in his care as a swimming coach several decades ago has been ongoing. It is understood gardaí submitted the extradition request to US authorities late last year.
He was taken into custody in Orlando on Tuesday with court records showing Mr Gibney subsequently submitted a financial affidavit before being granted a federal public defender as his attorney by federal magistrate judge, Daniel Irick.
Following Mr Gibney’s arrest, Judge Irick granted an order of temporary detention and scheduled a detention hearing for next Friday at 10am local time.
Gardaí spent several months preparing the paperwork for the extradition request, following a renewed criminal investigation into allegations Mr Gibney abused multiple children when he was a swimming coach in Ireland.
Mr Gibney was a well-known coach at Trojan swimming club in Dublin during the 1980s and 1990s, before abuse revelations emerged publicly.
He previously faced criminal charges in 1993, appearing before Dún Laoghaire District Court charged with 27 counts of indecency against young swimmers and of having carnal knowledge of girls under the age of 15.
However, he halted that prosecution by taking a judicial review, where his lawyers argued there was a delay in the offences coming to court and a lack of precision in defining specific alleged incidents.
The legal challenge ended up in the Supreme Court, which ruled in his favour. Mr Gibney left Ireland afterwards, spending time in Scotland before moving to the US.
