By Corky Siemaszko - NBC News - 16.10.2024 - [USA[ - [Bradford Bomba Sr]
Two former Indiana University basketball players have sued their alma mater alleging their team doctor repeatedly sexually assaulted them and their teammates and the school did nothing to stop him.
Haris Mujezinovic and Charlie Miller, who played for the Hoosiers in the 1990s under legendary coach Bob Knight, said in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana that the coaches and trainers were aware that Dr. Bradford Bomba Sr. was subjecting basketball players to unnecessary prostate examinations. Knight died last year at age 83.
“Dr. Bomba, Sr.’s routine sexual assaults were openly discussed by the Hoosier men’s basketball players in the locker room in the presence of IU employees, including assistant coaches, athletic trainers, and other Hoosier men’s basketball staff,” according to the lawsuit.
Bomba, who had played football for Indiana University, was nicknamed “‘Frankenstein” by the coaches and players “due to the large size of his hands and fingers,” the lawsuit says.
Mujezinovic and Miller, who both went on to play professional basketball in Europe, are seeking unspecified damages, and they urged their former teammates in statements to come forward and join the lawsuit.
“I’m standing up for all student-athletes who have suffered abuse,” Mujezinovic, who spent two seasons at Indiana from 1995 to 1997, said in a statement. “I hope that more of our former teammates will speak out and share their stories publicly.”
Miller, who played for the Hoosiers from 1994 through 1998, echoed his former teammate.
“I will never understand why IU leadership did nothing to protect us from what I now understand was sexual abuse,” he said in a statement.
Kathleen Delaney, who represents Mujezinovic and Miller, said in the lawsuit that there could be “at least one hundred” alleged victims.
Delaney names the Trustees of Indiana University as defendants in the lawsuit, alleging Title IX violations by the school for failing to protect the students. Under Title IX, universities that get federal funding are required to have safety measures to protect students from predators. Bomba is not listed as a defendant.
Bomba, who is 88, was IU’s men’s basketball team physician for two decades. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Delaney said she alerted Indiana University in a letter last month that a former basketball player had come forward with allegations of abuse at the hands of Bomba.
Asked about the Mujezinovic and Miller lawsuit, IU spokesperson Mark Bode sent a link Wednesday to his statement last month, which said the school had retained the Jones Day law firm to launch an independent investigation.
“The former student-athlete alleges that he was subjected to inappropriate prostate and rectal exams during annual physicals with Dr. Bomba, Sr., something that he also alleges was a practice for all basketball student-athletes assigned to Dr. Bomba, Sr. for physical examinations,” the statement said.
The accusations that IU turned a blind eye to allegations of a team doctor’s sexually abusing student-athletes are similar to those leveled in 2018 by former Ohio State University wrestlers who said their coaches knew that Dr. Richard Strauss was preying on them but also failed to act.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article and were abused in state run medical and health facilities, you can contact Dignity4Patients, whose helpline is open Monday to Thursday 10am to 4pm.
Dignity4Patients Commentary:- Any medical examination, routine or otherwise, that is unnecessary, invasive, and not required for health purposes is abuse. #SexualAbuse when intimate body parts are involved. Patients must have the opportunity for #InformedConsent