BOSTON — A former Olympian and longtime track coach will spend as many as 11 years in state prison after pleading guilty to charges of sexually molesting young boys at a sports camp in western Massachusetts in the 1970s, abuse that was laid bare by the emotional testimony of several victims.
Conrad Mainwaring, who was a hurdler for Antigua and Barbuda in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, faced 12 counts of indecent assault and battery on a child over 14 and four counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 in Berkshire Superior Court.
The charges involved nine male victims.
“He used his Olympic status to abuse young boys,” District Attorney Timothy Shugrue told the court. “He chose young, attractive, athletic boys, young men because he knew, at least he thought he knew, they would not speak up. This was his opportunity for self-gratification, a fraud at the expense of many, many lives.”
In a pattern that repeated itself over the years, Shugrue detailed case after case in which Mainwaring leveraged his Olympic credentials as part of a grooming technique used on boys attending Camp Greylock, making the youngsters believe that the sexual assault would make them better athletes.