Ex-Olympian Conrad Avondale Mainwaring Arrested, Charged with Sexual Battery

Conrad Avondale Mainwaring, who competed in the 1976 Olympics, was arrested Wednesday and charged with a felony count of sexual battery by fraud.

Mike Kessler and Mark Fainaru-Wada of ESPN.com reported the news, noting the arrest coincides with an Outside the Lines investigation that included discussions with 31 men who said the longtime track coach sexually abused them.

The felony count of sexual battery by fraud is punishable with up to four years in prison.

Allegations against him date from the mid-1970s to 2016, some of which came from men who said they were teenagers at the time.

"They said he initiated sexual contact under the guise of mental training that focused on getting them to control and manipulate erections and testosterone levels as a means of improving athletic performance," Kessler and Fainaru-Wada wrote. The men told Kessler and Fainaru-Wada he used his status as a former Olympian to persuade them to train with him and said the acts were "all clinical" to improve their athletic performances.

Los Angeles Police Department detective Sharlene Johnson said he was "using his position as a coach with athletes who are so focused and driven to be perfect at their craft that he was able to victimize them without them even realizing it."

Mainwaring competed in the 1976 Games for his birth country of Antigua. He also coached hurdler Felix Sanchez, who won Olympic gold in 2004 and 2012 but was not one of the men who accused him of abuse.