An open letter to Lloyd and Luca.

Dear Lloyd and Luca,

Lloyd's apologia begins as follows, and my responses in bold:

"I first want to apologize.

I want to apologize
to my mother,
to my father,
to my wife
and
to my son for my silence.

The public taunting & harassing phone calls you have received are undeserved and my recent silence is partly to blame.

I have in fact made statements in the local news
but those statements have not reached everyone
in our BJJ & MMA family and this is the reason my silence ends today..."

Why the fuck

do you write

as if you were an eighth grader

imitating Ogden Nash

entering

your first poetry contest?

Would this not have been more powerful

if written 

in 

haiku form?

And how fucking sad that you frame your complaint as an apology... you adopt this veil of humility and regret but really, you're just whining about people not understanding you!  Yes, I agree, it's wrong for people to harass your relatives-- it's not their fault.  But really, Lloyd, people aren't complaining about your silence about Nick and Mateo!  Yes yes we all know you deplored their actions and vowed to support your student/survivor in that first media comment.  THAT'S NOT THE SILENCE WE'RE TALKING ABOUT.  (Sorry for shouting, seems like you're just not hearing us.)  It's the silence about your own past, and about the comments of your students like Marcus Avellan and Phil Proctor, and about your tactless and opportunistic purchase of LloydIrvinRape.com that bothers me the most.

"One of my biggest priorities in these past couple of weeks has been to express to her my sincere and deepest apology. And that too is what this letter is about.
I want to publicly apologize to her for me not knowing, not sensing, and not having the awareness to know that this was even possible."

Straw man bullshit.  No one expects you to have known or sensed this.  You're not a mind-reader.  And of course you had the awareness that this was possible... you teach RAPE PREVENTION.  You're just falling on a nonexistent sword to appease the masses with how wonderful you are, how sincere, how sympathetic.

"It has been reported that a video (as of the time I am releasing this letter, I have not seen the video nor has the case been resolved) that was described in the recent court documents shows that this was a deplorable and disgraceful act committed by two individuals who acted OUTSIDE the code of honor of our team, NOT within it."

First of all, that video is not ever going to be released until it becomes evidence admitted in court and thus part of public record.  If those boys take a plea, it may never be admitted as evidence and we may never see it.  Second, to make such a big deal of the guys acting "outside the code of honor" is just your attempt to avoid future civil liability for the actions of your employees.  Since I'm not a personal liability or employment law specialist, I'll leave the legal analysis of such possibilities to them.

"One of the accused had been with me for barely a month and the other for a total time of barely seven months..."

Can anyone verify or confirm this?

"This young woman who needs my support, my team’s support and your support should be the ONLY thing we are talking about, thinking about & praying about right now but unfortunately as you know I have become a significant portion of this discussion for something that happened in 1989."

I disagree.  Yes, she's obviously important, but aside from our prayers, there's nothing we can do to help her.  Talking about an anonymous survivor makes no sense and isn't going to assist her healing process.  But-- talking about Lloyd's actions and Lloyd's choices?  That is an interesting and productive pursuit, one which I am sure you wish we'd just give up.  Because you're obviously planning on staying active in the community.  What kind of character has he displayed?  Sure, he's created a business empire and coached a number of talented individuals to high honors.  He's taught in a martial arts academy and been paid to do so.  He's also participated in the gang rape of a 17 year old, granted twenty years ago.  What do we know about his rehabilitation, if any?  What do any of the readers of this blog really know about the rehabilitation of sex offenders?  

"From this point forward I anticipate that
anything I say will be ripped apart and shredded by those who either have an axe to grind,
aren’t focused on prevention of violence/rape against women or even may simply not care about the truth."

Haha, none of those sobriquets apply to me.  I have no axe to grind, I've been a rape crisis/domestic violence counselor since 1993-1994, and as a survivor of sexual assault, a prosecutor, and a woman in the BJJ community, I care very much about the truth.  What a shoddy attempt to demonize your critics!

"The truth is that nobody knows much of the real story of New Years Eve 2012 nor the incident of 1989 at all."

Haha again... actually, at least three people know the real story of NYE 2012 (but that's not what we're here to discuss.)  And MANY more know the real story of the "incident" of 1989-- more accurately, the "gang rape" of 1989.    Let's see-- the survivor, the other men who participated, not to mention the juries and the prosecutors and the police involved.  They all know at least a good chunk of what happened.

"What I am about to share with you IS an eyewitness account of what REALLY happened 23 years ago."

Ooh, the first time I read this, I thought-- dang, this is why your lawyers wanted you to shut up.  But of course now we all know you did NOT share anything remotely like an eyewitness account.  So, your lawyers had nothing to worry about.

"I’m not saying this to excuse my choices and decisions, as that’s simply not possible.
I am saying my life and my foundation was different as an uncertain 20 year old than it is now as a father, husband and mentor at 43."

Lloyd, I'm 40.  I'm a wife, struggling to be a mother, and in some ways I think I am a mentor as well.  I'm not cut out for a future in politics, as I definitely made my share of bad choices.  But I will NOT attempt to downplay my decisions as a 20 year old as being completely irrelevant to understanding my character.  My foundation remains the same.  People change how they choose to act, but they don't change what's inside their heart.  If you don't understand that what you did at 20 was wrong, now as a 43 year old father/husband/mentor, then your heart has not changed.  And I'm not hearing anything from you that owns up to wrongdoing.  I hear a lot of "I'm telling the truth, which I told then, and I did not rape her, I did not have sex with her."  In other words, you're still defending yourself.  You're still insisting you did nothing wrong.  So yay for you, you may have chosen to act like an upstanding person ever since... but sometimes your heart still snags control of the steering wheel.  Your passionate plea for "understanding" reveals that you still don't think you deserve any moral blame for that gang rape in 1989.  So sad.

"I told the truth 23 years ago
to my mother
to my father and
under oath in a court of law and I’m telling the truth today.
I’m telling you the same thing I told the jury and the truth that is STILL on record."

I believe I read that you testified (truthfully, we are told) that you wanted to have sex with that girl and you tried to have sex with her but you couldn't get an erection.  That truth is hardly flattering to your character and soul. 

"I did NOT rape nor have sex with ANYONE involved in the 1989 incident cannot and should not be brushed under the carpet.
I told the 100% unadulterated truth, just as I’m sharing with you right now.
I did NOT “get off on a technicality” as some want to say.
Please understand...
Before my trial in 1989 I was offered a plea bargain for “lesser time”..."

Um, you want a cookie because you couldn't get it up?  I think you deserve our moral outrage because you WANTED to rape her.  And you don't even get that you weren't going to have "sex" with her.  It was RAPE.

And by the way-- what no one seems to realize is that, with multiple codefendants, there are ALMOST ALWAYS multiple trials.  Defendants want to be able to blame each other, you see.  So it's not like there was ONE trial of all these guys.  SEVERAL juries heard the evidence.  This girl had to get up and testify against you rapists not once, but several times.  Several different defense lawyers got to cross examine her and come up with random theories of why it wasn't rape.  I'm SURE the "running a train" theory aka "she's a dirty whore who wanted it" story came up several times.  And several juries rejected it.  


I said “no, no dad I didn’t rape her, I didn’t.” And with that he said...
“then you will not say you did.”

Number one I'm sorry your dad had to even ask you if you raped her.  I guess that's kind of telling.

Number two, did your dad think to ask whether you wanted to? whether you tried and failed?

"...and as part of that continued changing
will be my deep and sincere
commitment to the woman who needs our support most right now and my promise to spend
the rest of my days doing what I can to
prevent any woman from ever
experiencing anything even remotely similar.
People are often quick to say “actions speak louder than words”... and in this case I have 16 years of publicly visible
actions as a martial artist, as a teacher, a coach,
a husband, a father, a mentor and an advocate...
and in the end while my actions don’t ERASE the past,
those actions DO demonstrate the DIFFERENCE between
the man writing this statement and
the boy who failed to live up to the standards his mother and father set for him."

This is one of the few things he says that strikes me as sincere and honorable.  I don't know how much credit he should get for doing what's right (isn't that the bare minimum we expect of our citizens?) but I know I would have given him a LOT MORE respect if he had ever owned up to his past before being FORCED to by SEO.  But then I think this-- lots of abusers and rapists seem perfectly upstanding to the people around them.  They're always shocked to find out their loved one had another side.  So I guess I'm still uncomfortable with the idea that Lloyd is teaching women (who may have already been assaulted) how to avoid assaults in the future.  That just creeps me the fuck out.  And it totally makes me wonder about most of the men teaching self defense.  How utterly skeevy it would be to find out your teacher was once a rapist himself!!!!!

"please ask yourself to remember the most embarrassing and frightening moment of your entire life and then ask yourself exactly where is it appropriate in EVERY relationship you engage in to bring up that moment/circumstance for the rest of your life.
My wife has known about 1989 since we first met. My closest friends have known for years.
Even some of my enemies have known.
Nothing about this has been hidden."

If it was embarrassing, then you know you did something wrong, which seems to contradict the position you took above.  If it was frightening, it wasn't because you were the victim (imagine how frightened that 17 year old girl was) but because you'd been caught.  If it wasn't hidden, why is the internet on fire talking about it, why isn't it "oh yeah, I knew that." I'm glad you were honest about your past with the people close to you.  I know I would not have taken any rape prevention seminars, self defense classes, or BJJ lessons from you (not that I have) if I had known you were a rapist in thought if not in deed.  How many of your actual students or seminar attendees would feel the same?  so did you hide this information from them for monetary gain?  Of course.

"The long and short of it was this...
The reason I purchased the url was singular.
I didn’t like the tone and tenor of things online
(but still felt I could not speak publicly about anything) and I simply didn’t want someone else in control of
the name my Son and I share in association with
the current or 1989 situation."

You said it more concisely than anyone else could have.  You didn't like what people were saying and you didn't want a search for Lloyd Irvin rape to come up with the facts of the 2012 rape or the 1989 rape.  How convenient to have such a search reveal what an upstanding guy you are.

"In closing,
I want to directly and specifically speak to my brothers and sisters in the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu community. I am sorry, truly sorry for the shadow this casts over our great art, sport and lifestyle that we lead."

I don't think it casts a shadow on BJJ.  People outside of BJJ don't know the difference, all the news reports refer to a martial arts academy, and I don't think it will affect non-BJJ people really.  But within BJJ, we all know it's not BJJ's fault.  Bad apples can be found in any barrel.  

Nowhere in your open letter did you express any regret or apology for what happened to that girl in 1989.

And now, Luca Atalla's open letter. (Ryan Hall created a trend!) Luca apparently speaks for Gracie Mag.  I encourage you to read it and all the comments, which I won't repeat in their entirety here. In short, whatever damage was done to Lloyd's reputation was self-inflicted.   

Lloyd's followers and defenders display a disturbing trend-- arrogance.  Check this one response from "David" about 3/4 down the page:

"It’s really clear…It’s so obviously clear, those who live in glass houses seem to want to do and say everything within their power to insult, degrade and defame someone who is doing more with their life than the rest of us…It’s so obviously transparent and totally tragic…You can talk about a man’s past, karma, and what goes around comes around – whatever – but at the end of the day, 99% of all the critics, those that throw the first stone and those who for whatever emptiness exists in their own lives, love to bring another person down, you cannot deny – He is Lloyd Irvin, and those that comment, the dissenters and all the whining, useless, gossipy finger pointers, remain nobodies…Nothing..Unless you’ve made a positive impact in this life, unless you’ve made any wide impact at all, you remain, giggling girls at a quilting bee who prefer to point fingers while others lead…It’s a fact, face it…It’s just a fact. You’re talking about HIM, while nobody is talking about YOU…Sleep with that…Live with that…Remember that before the next stupid word comes out of your mouth…Dogs always make a lot of noise and that is their nature…Pity that no dog beyond Lassie is worthy of note…Or is the answer simply obvious? Anybody with the stupidity to further comment on my point, has proven my point…It’s that simple. Go do something with your own life and quit fooling yourself that you’re somehow better by mocking another, so you don’t choke on your own lack of achievement…"

We're talking about Lloyd for bad reasons, not good ones.  He's "achieved" notoriety.  I'd rather be a nobody.