Kurt Ludwigsen, the former coach for the Nyack College softball team, was sentenced on March 31, 2016, to six years probation for sexually assaulting seven of his former student-athletes.
While Ludwigsen claimed that his slapping his student-athletes’ buttocks was just part of softball, the sentencing judge seemed confused and asked Ludwigsen to re-allocute, or confess to his crimes. In open court, Ludwigsen was again asked if he agreed that he was guilty of seven counts of forcible touching of the victims’ buttocks for the purpose of degrading them, abusing them and gratifying himself sexually. While Ludwigsen stood silently, his criminal defense attorney stated that Ludwigsen agreed to the plea.
Neither the Court nor the prosecutor seemed to care that Ludwigsen also had denied responsibility for his actions by having accused his victims in civil court of having lied about their allegations.
The New York Daily News quoted Todd J. Krouner, attorney for six of Ludwigsen’s victims: “It’s a sad day where someone gets to plead guilty to serial counts of sexual assault and get a slap on the wrist and a mere probationary sentence where he has caused irreparable damage and searing psychological damage to his victims.”
Krouner intends to use Ludwigsen’s half-hearted guilty plea to throw out the frivolous counterclaims against the victims, in which Ludwigsen alleges that the victims lied, in the Title IX sex discrimination lawsuit that is pending in the federal court.