Lloyd Irvin's statement about his 1990 trial for rape - My draft

[100%Jiu-Jitsu]

There has been a lot of discussion about how Lloyd Irvin should respond to the NYE incident in which 2 members of his competition team are alleged to have sexually attacked a female member of his school, as well as the the revelations about his own 1990 trial for rape. As you can see in this thread, many people are very unhappy with Lloyd's decision to avoid discussing the latter incident by deleting any mention of his brush with the criminal justice system.

Would any of you be willing to give Lloyd the benefit of the doubt if he had instead released the following statement?

I'm releasing this statement to discuss a painful but important chapter in my life. It began with an incident I should have discussed more openly in the past, because it has been so vital in molding me into the man I am today.

In 1989, as a 20-year-old college student, I went to a wild party that I never should have attended. After consuming large quantities of alcohol, some of the other male students at the party began having sex in a bedroom with a female student. Even though I could see that the sex was consensual, I still felt extremely uncomfortable with what was occurring​

 

[primaxopt]

Dude, are you kidding? That's probably not what happened. What likely happened is that Irvin was part of the gang rape itself. He just happened to have a defense attorney smart enough to make up an explanation that the jury bought. Writing out a fictional (and false) statement is bizarre.

 

[Vitamin C]

It doesn't work with his admission that he wanted to, but lets not start drafting up his statement for him now, hey?

 

[shunyata]

I would respect him a lot more as a person if he put out a press release to this effect, but furthermore given the clear video evidence of his students committing this crime publicly banished them from his school and team for life and strip his team affiliation away from any medals they earned while part of his team.

He may have already done the latter for all I know but now that this is a huge public scandal and there is no question of guilt he should publicly sanction them.

 

[shunyata]

Dude, are you kidding? That's probably not what happened. What likely happened is that Irvin was part of the gang rape itself. He just happened to have a defense attorney smart enough to make up an explanation that the jury bought. Writing out a fictional (and false) statement is bizarre.

I think its safe to assume you've never worked in public relations.

 

[tirofijo]

There are already plenty of people giving LI the benefit of the doubt, when all he has done is delete any mention of the rape case from FB and post rape prevention seminar testimonials to manipulate google search results.

So yeah, that sort of disclosure would have been good damage control. He will probably have to do something like that soon if this doesn't blow over. Going to be hard to hide 200 pages of sherdog posts From google.


However, i just saw on another forum that a LI black belt said he's known LI for 15 years and had never heard about the rape case. Then he defended LI and said the girl probably wanted a train run on her. Its things like that that makea me think, unfortunately, we'll see LI come out of this relatively unscathed.

 

[Vitamin C]

I would respect him a lot more as a person if he put out a press release to this effect, but furthermore given the clear video evidence of his students committing this crime publicly banished them from his school and team for life and strip his team affiliation away from any medals they earned while part of his team.

He may have already done the latter for all I know but now that this is a huge public scandal and there is no question of guilt he should publicly sanction them.

Well he publicly shamed a kid for showing up late to a training session. I would expect that when he is able to legally discuss the matter, he should put them on blast.

 

[100%Jiu-Jitsu]

It doesn't work with his admission that he wanted to, but lets not start drafting up his statement for him now, hey?

"Wanted to" is a flexible concept. I suspect he could massage his trial testimony to mean he "wanted to" because of the peer pressure he felt at the time.

Do I think this statement captures the truth of what happened? Of course not! It's just a mental exercise to see whether the facts could be presented more strategically to avoid the current outcry.

 

[100%Jiu-Jitsu]

Just read on another forum that a LI black belt said he's known LI for 15 years and had never heard about the rape case. Then he defended LI and said the girl probably wanted a train run on her.

Link?

 

[BeRGLeZ]

There has been a lot of discussion about how Lloyd Irvin should respond to the NYE incident in which 2 members of his competition team are alleged to have sexually attacked a female member of his school, as well as the the revelations about his own 1990 trial for rape. As you can see in this thread, many people are very unhappy with Lloyd's decision to avoid discussing the latter incident by deleting any mention of his brush with the criminal justice system.

Would any of you be willing to give Lloyd the benefit of the doubt if he had instead released the following statement?

I'm releasing this statement to discuss a painful but important chapter in my life. It began with an incident I should have discussed more openly in the past, because it has been so vital in molding me into the man I am today.

In 1989, as a 20-year-old college student, I went to a wild party that I never should have attended. After consuming large quantities of alcohol, some of the other male students at the party began having sex in a bedroom with a female student. Even though I could see that the sex was consensual, I still felt extremely uncomfortable with what was occurring​

 

[LS1Rx7]

There are already plenty of people giving LI the benefit of the doubt, when all he has done is delete any mention of the rape case from FB and post rape prevention seminar testimonials to manipulate google search results.

I've seen this come up a few times, just wanted to mention as an SEO consultant that it doesn't look like he's doing any Google manipulation, not that it would help at all. The cat is out of the bag, and a fortune 500 company couldn't put it back in much less LI.

It would take a huge SEO budget a massive team and some luck to push all the bad stuff off the first page of Google and even then it'd be on the second page. Once newspapers start syndicating a story it's pretty much impossible to outrank them all in the short term.

EDIT: I take that back.. you're right he's doing a lame ass job of trying to put good material out there
http://www.fox8live.com/story/20553120/lloyd-irvin-rape-prevention-and-self-defense-seminar

Was a press release distributed on PRWeb (common press release service used by Internet marketers for crap fake press releases) this one was released today and is blantent SEO trying to cover up.. not gonna work. His Press release didn't even make google news ... LI might be an internet marketer but he sucks at SEO

 

[argy-bargy]

What on earth is going on here? It's like you are LARPing being a defence attourney or somthing. Why the hell did you make this a thread? What are you trying to achieve here? What does this have to with grappling technique?

Truly bizzare to say the least. Frankly I think this is trivialising the issue.

 

[Da Speeit]

What the hell are you doing?

 

[Zankou]

You are an excellent poster 100%, but I think there are enough LI threads. Hence closing this one. I know comments may get lost in the maelstrom, often very good comments, but that's a product of how much activity there is in the LI threads.

 

[itheuser]

Trouble seems to follow Irvin. It was the real estate scandal, then the bullshit grappling gameplan which he roped other students into peddling. Now this rape case, and one in which he was named in 1989. The there was the sudden separation with Ryan Hall.

Irvin graduated with a degree in marketing (bullshit).

Irvin may run a good school, but there's other things I look for in an instructor besides being a great teacher.

Controversy seems to follow aggressive marketing types. There's a tick about them.