A former athletic trainer at San Jose State University pleaded guilty on Tuesday to unlawfully groping four women who had come to him for medical care, prosecutors said.
Appearing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the former trainer, Scott Shaw, admitted to having violated the civil rights of the women, who were student athletes, by touching their breasts and buttocks without their consent between 2017 and 2020, federal prosecutors said in a statement.
Mr. Shaw was charged in March 2022 with six misdemeanor counts of deprivation of civil rights under color of law. The charges were announced less than a year after San Jose State agreed to pay about $3.3 million to 15 women who had accused Mr. Shaw of wrongdoing. The misconduct detailed in the federal charges took place years after the university first learned of concerns about Mr. Shaw’s behavior toward women under his care, the Justice Department said.
“Scott Shaw abused his position of trust and authority as a public university official to sexually assault female student-athletes who entrusted him with their medical care,” Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the Justice Department, said in the statement announcing the guilty plea.
Mr. Shaw pleaded…
