Contacted by Ben Sheppard (UPDATED)

Back in September, I wrote a post concerning the an article about Ben Sheppard, an Oakland area swim coach who was accused of sending inappropriate messages to his swimmers. Since then, very little has happened- by all accounts Sheppard lost both of his jobs. One was with the Oakland Community Pools and another with USA Swimming. So, needless to say, I was pretty surprised when he contacted me via facebook.


Ben wrote me to say he wasn't very happy with what I wrote. Although I didn't actually pass judgement on whether the specific allegations against Sheppard were true, I did use pretty strong language afterwards to denounce what I considered was still far too much silence on the issue. I responded to Sheppard's message and what followed was a tense but fairly tame exchange between Sheppard and I. Here was his initial message:

hi chris 

I just wanted to reach out to you to let you know that I really did not appreciate your journalism regarding me.
You took the word of a local neighborhood newspaper that had no fact and no proof. It is your freedom, of speech right to say what you wish, but you had and have no idea if its true. And trust me its not.
In any case, I suppose it is your job to report what you read, but you yourself should know not to believe everything your read.

respectfully
Ben

Here is how I replied:

Hey Ben,

Thanks for writing me. I don't consider myself a journalist but that's not an excuse if I've unfairly maligned you.

What happened? I'd be happy to be wrong, believe me

I suppose if I could do it over again I wouldn't have said thank you, but my mother ingrained me to say it almost reflexively (you can see that Sheppard responds in kind below.). As I said in my message, I would be genuinely happy to be wrong, even if I had to point out that I overreacted and contributed to smearing someone with my post. Being wrong would mean that the behavior described in the article (suggestive facebook messages to girls on his team) did not take place. Here is Ben's response:

accusations that werent founded...thats more than Ive been advised to say. trust me it was not you who did the damage. and I DO NOT want you to re approach the topic. but I just thought I would reach out to let you know.

thanks
ben

Sheppard asked me not to revisit the issue, which is what I'm doing in this blog, and you'll see why in a moment. At this point I grew curious- Sheppard seemed to be very interested in changing my mind but not interested in me writing about it. I tried to gently push him to be more specific:

I understand if there are pending legal matters that make you not want to say more. I will follow the story and I'll re approach the topic if new information comes out. I would need to find out that you never sent the messages that are alleged in the article and comment section below to change my mind.

To which Sheppard responded:

You are entitled to your beliefs and there are no pending legal matters

Now I thought, "this is a curious situation". I had read that Sheppard had been fired from USA Swimming. I figured that because of this there must be some sort of pending matter with them. I decided to call Susan Woessner and ask her. She however, declined to comment because she cannot do so on pending child protection matters for the protection and privacy of all involved..(An original version of this post simply stated that Woessner did not comment except to say that Sheppard is not a member. This was incorrect. ). So I sent Sheppard another question:

Then why wouldn't you just say "I never sent those messages that they said I did"? That's a much clearer refutation than the one you gave me. If you did send the messages I can't think of a context in which they are appropriate.

To which he wrote:

I thought I said that I have always said that

If I could respond to this message all over again, I would have. I had no idea that Sheppard had "always said that". I hadn't seen any public comment from him at all, besides this one from the East Bay Express article: 

"They aren't true" and "I'm not even sure entirely what your [sic] referring to." 

This is still somewhat vague in my opinion. So I asked this question:

but then do you know who sent them?

From there, no response in the last week. My response assumes there were messages, which Sheppard may contest. Although part of me is conflicted about writing this post since he asked me nicely not to, I also don't believe I am bound to keep the conversation secret by Sheppard. The lack of information surrounding this goes back to my original fall post- the secrecy seems to hurt everyone involved. There has been no public verification or follow up by any of those involved to my knowledge- the Oakland Undercurrent, USA Swimming or the East Bay Express. Typically I would expect nothing to come out because of pending legal matters, but in this case Sheppard says there is none. So what gives?