Did swim coach lie about drug charges?, By: Randy Starkman
Aug. 16, 2006
Newly unsealed court documents show that Oakville swim coach Cecil Russell — who admitted helping a murderer dispose of his victim — appears to have lied to Canadian sports officials about being exonerated in an ecstasy trafficking case.
This helped convince a sports adjudicator last fall to lift Russell's lifetime coaching ban, imposed after he was convicted of steroid trafficking in 1996. Soon after his reinstatement, Russell took over as head coach of the Dolphins Swim Club in Oakville where he supervises 125 swimmers, including children as young as seven.
Arbitrator Graeme Mew ruled that Russell, now 53, deserved another chance at coaching. He dismissed concerns about Russell's involvement in an international ecstasy ring calling it "another brush with the law, leading to the temptation to think that there is never smoke without fire, the fact of the matter is that he has been completely exonerated."
Yesterday, the Star obtained a copy of the March 4, 2004 judgment rendered by the U.S. District Court in Arizona showing Russell pleaded guilty in September 2003 to conspiracy to possession with intent to distribute ecstasy and was sentenced to four years in prison, followed by three years of supervised release.
Russell had co-operated with authorities in the prosecution of his co-conspirators and the judgment against him was sealed. For reasons not immediately made clear, the judgment was only recently made public.
The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport, which appointed the arbitrator, said it is considering bringing the new information to the attention of Mew to see if he can revisit his ruling.
"Another option for us would be to get an injunction to reopen the case," said centre CEO Paul Melia. "The road we were going down was to try and find out if indeed he had perjured himself during that reinstatement hearing."
Federal Sports Minister Michael Chong had ordered officials to review the Russell case after a Star story in July detailing the coach's checkered past and stating that Russell was reinstated despite strong indications he had not been exonerated in Arizona.
Gary Toft, the spokesman for the minister, said the review is still underway. "This (new) information will be part of that review. We are also consulting the appropriate parties to determine the implications of this information."
Russell declined comment last night, referring the matter to his lawyer, Gary Boyd, who was noticeably perturbed when told about the latest development.
"I've certainly got to look at this and have a long chat with Cecil," said Boyd, who represented him at his reinstatement hearing. "None of us likes surprises."
Russell's reinstatement after serving eight years of what was originally a lifetime ban was greeted with much consternation in the Canadian sports community. That was only heightened shortly after his return when a newspaper story appeared detailing his involvement in helping to burn and dispose of a murder victim's body in a corn silo beside his Oshawa home.
Russell testified in 1997 about his role in helping a steroid ring associate incinerate his murder victim's remains. It was part of a deal with authorities to get a lighter sentence for a steroid trafficking conviction a year earlier. He told the court he ran a steroid operation from February 1993 through September 1995 which grossed between $700,000 and $1 million per year and took less than an hour a day to run.
He would find an even more potentially lucrative drug operation three years later in Spain, where he was coaching eventual Olympic bronze medallist Nina Jivanevskaia. He was arrested right on the pool deck there in June 2000 as the alleged supplier in an international ecstasy ring. Court documents stated that Russell and his co-conspirators were planning to ship 500,000 ecstasy tablets, concealing them in ceramic windmills, picture frames and taped under plates. Russell was reportedly getting $5 per tablet.
Russell told the Star last month that he'd been completely exonerated in the ecstasy case. Mew mentioned in his ruling there were letters proving Russell's exoneration that were presented by his counsel. His lawyer Boyd said yesterday a letter he presented at Russell's hearing from his American attorney, Nathaniel J. Carr, stated that a "whole bunch of charges had been withdrawn."
Boyd said there was no mention of a guilty plea. He said he plans to now investigate the matter.
The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport and Swimming Canada, the governing body of the sport, both said their own investigations into Russell had been hampered because of their inability to access his court documents in Arizona.
The Star story on Russell in July had sparked an outcry about his ability to still coach children despite his criminal past.
The sports minister has asked Sport Canada to conduct a review with an eye toward coming up with a system that better scrutinizes potential coaches.
