SAN JOSE – Defense lawyers representing the former San Jose State athletic trainer accused of sexually assaulting female athletes suffered a setback on the first day presenting their case Tuesday when the federal judge ruled their expert witness was not qualified to testify “in the area of athletic trainers.”
Further, the defense lawyers were unable to convince U.S. District Judge Beth Labson-Freeman that sports medicine doctor Brett DeGooyer from rural Washington knew enough about the individual allegations against Scott Shaw to testify about whether the trainer’s treatment was legitimate, only whether it was “potentially legitimate.”
The distinction could be key for a case that will rely on whether the eight-woman, four-man jury has reasonable doubt about whether Shaw is guilty of six federal charges when he touched female athletes under their bras and underwear during treatment sessions.
Shaw, who resigned as Director of Sports Medicine at San Jose State in 2020, has pleaded not guilty to “willfully depriving four female student-athletes of their Constitutional fundamental right to bodily integrity when he sexually assaulted them.”
After a day off Thursday, the trial will resume Friday when the defense plans to call to the stand San Jose State swim coach Sage Hopkins, who first reported to university authorities complaints about Shaw from 17 swimmers in 2009. A university investigation at that time cleared Shaw and allowed him to continue at San Jose State where new accusations surfaced years later and erupted into a scandal that led to a Department of Justice investigation, more than $5 million in settlements and the resignation of the university president and athletic director.
Defense lawyer Dave Callaway has already suggested in court that Hopkins had a “vendetta” against Shaw as he carried on a decade-long campaign to keep Shaw away from his athletes, even though the school’s initial investigation cleared Shaw in 2010. That investigation concluded that Shaw’s “trigger point therapy” was bonafide treatment. The scandal broke in 2020 after Hopkins ultimately took his complaints to the National Collegiate Athletic Association, sparking the new probe.
At least four more female athletes came forward after that, complaining of sexual assault that occurred since 2017, within the 5-year-statute of limitations.
In a conflict between the defense and prosecution in court Tuesday, DeGooyer’s lack of experience became an issue. During his entire sports medicine career since 2015, DeGooyer – the team physician at Big Bend Community College in Moses Lake, Washington – said he spent no more than 15% of his time working with college athletes and about 220 hours total in a college training room and no more than 30 hours supervising athletic trainers there.
The prosecution’s expert last week, Dr. Cindy Chang, is the chief medical officer with the National Women’s Soccer League and former head team physician for UC Berkeley athletics for 13 years, often working 80-hour weeks with 29 varsity teams. She spent nearly a full day testifying last week that Shaw’s touching of the athlete’s breasts and buttocks was “completely inappropriate.” The way Shaw was described as touching women’s nipples and pubic areas, she testified, was “not only bad practice, it’s sexual misconduct or abuse without having documentation about why this was being performed in this way.”
On the witness stand Tuesday, DeGooyer at times seemed to support the prosecution’s case when he testified about the importance of getting permission from patients before treating sensitive areas and draping towels over them for privacy – two things that former athletes testified he never did.
From their questions Tuesday, it appeared defense lawyers were trying to show that while Shaw engaged in poor practices, they were not illegal.
Still, DeGooyer did testify that if he was diagnosing a back injury – as Shaw had done with one of the alleged victims in the case – it would be “potentially acceptable” for him to touch a broad area of the woman’s buttocks.
And while he said there could be instances when touching breast tissue could be appropriate treatment, he had never touched an athlete’s nipple or areola like Shaw is accused of doing.
“Would that be appropriate for an athletic trainer?” defense lawyer Jeremy Blank asked.
“No, it would not,” DeGooyer testified.
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