Former VANOC CEO John Furlong makes his way to a news conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, Thursday September 27, 2012. (CARMINE MARINELLI/QMI AGENCY)
A journalist hit with a defamation lawsuit by John Furlong said she planned to write two more articles claiming the former Vancouver Organizing Committee for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (VANOC) boss raped his common-law wife and groped at least two female students during his early years in northern B.C.
In her formal response to the lawsuit filed by Furlong in B.C. Supreme Court, Georgia Straight freelancer Laura Robinson alleges that in addition to the groping, there were accounts of verbal and physical abuse by Furlong during his secretive time in Burns Lake, B.C., more than 40 years ago.
“At the end of PE (physical education) classes, he would ask her to stay by herself and would caress her face and say, ‘You’re my prodigy, you’re my favourite out of all the girls',” the document states, detailing an incident in which the girl’s breasts were also grabbed.
Robinson claims in her response that she’d also gathered additional, unpublished material on students’ experiences with Furlong when he was an instructor.
