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Lucca van der Woude, once considered one of American water polo’s top Olympic prospects, recently admitted under oath that he transferred prior to the 2024-25 academic year to Newport Harbor High School from Harvard-Westlake only after the nationally renowned private school banned him from its campus following his February 2024 arrest following allegations that he had sexually assaulted teammates, according to a transcript of a deposition of van der Woude reviewed by the Southern California News Group.
Van der Woude’s admission appears to indicate that he was ineligible to play for Newport Harbor under California Interscholastic Federation rules when the CIF Southern Section approved his transfer in August 2024, enabling him to compete for the Orange County school.
Van der Woude, a star on the U.S. national youth team, also admitted in the deposition that he used the N-word, usually without being disciplined by Harvard-Westlake coaches, employees or administrators.
“Are you surprised you didn’t get in trouble for saying the N-word?” van der Woude was asked in an August 6 deposition. Van der Woude admitted in Los Angeles County Juvenile Division Court on Nov.
7, 2024, to sexual pene tration with a foreign object (digital penetration) against a minor, according to Los Angeles County Juvenile Court, Los Angeles County Probation Department, Los Angeles Superior Court filings and U.S.
Center for SafeSport documents reviewed by the Southern California News Group (SCNG).
Neither van der Woude’s admission nor his arrest at Harvard-Westlake nine months earlier prevented him from transferring high schools, leading his new school, Newport Harbor, to a CIF title, representing Team USA internationally or in December 2024 mentoring the nation’s top 13- and 14-year-olds at a camp sponsored by USA Water Polo, the sport’s Irvine-based national governing body, at the nation’s most prestigious Olympic training site.
Nine days after his juvenile court admission, van der Woude led Newport Harbor to the CIF Southern Section Open Division title.
Van der Woude’s most recent admission in his deposition is likely to renew pressure on the CIF to investigate the circumstances surrounding his transfer to Newport Harbor, whether Newport Harbor coach Ross Sinclair, a friend and coaching colleague of Harvard-Westlake coach Jack Grover, was aware of van der Woude’s arrest and banishment from the private school, and whether Newport Harbor should be stripped of the CIF title.
“There is nothing complicated about this. Lucca van der Woude was punished after being arrested for sexual assault against minors,” attorney Daniel P.
Watkins told SCNG. “Lucca van der Woude was barred from Harvard-Westlake and the water polo team.
He transferred because he could not return. Those are the facts.
The only complexity comes from the effort to explain how those facts somehow disappeared when it came time to tell CIF the truth.” Watkins represents former Harvard-Westlake and U.S.
national youth national team player Aidan Romain, who alleges in a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and with the U.S. Center for SafeSport that van der Woude on multiple occasions sexually assaulted him and directed racial slurs at him.
The suit alleges that despite being informed by Romain and another Harvard-Westlake student that van der Woude had digitally penetrated them, Harvard-Westlake officials did not contact law enforcement or child protective services as required by law, according to the lawsuit.
Van der Woude’s attorney Kate Hardie did not respond directly to SCNG’s request for comment on the deposition, instead she asked what material SCNG had. Van der Woude was eventually arrested by the Los Angeles Police Department on campus in February 2024.
The lawsuit also details allegations that van der Woude and another Harvard-Westlake player “whipped (Romain) in the weight room in a re-enactment of slavery. They taunted him with racial slurs, calling him a ‘(N-word)’ nearly every day for approximately five months.
When (the teammate) and Lucca van der Woude were questioned by the school, both admitted it. Harvard-Westlake still failed to take necessary steps to protect” Romain.
Van der Woude was ordered by the juvenile court to pay the Romain family $49,266 in restitution, according to an Order For Victim Restitution reviewed by SCNG.
Van der Woude’s deposition was part of a separate suit in which Alex Romain, Aidan’s father, is suing Harvard-Westlake to gain access to his son’s school records, which the suit alleges Harvard-Westlake is withholding.
Watkins did not ask van der Woude to admit to sexual misconduct as part of a pre-deposition agreement between Watkins and van der Woude’s attorney. Attempts to reach van der Woude’s attorney were unsuccessful.
“There is a la rger point as well. CIF’s eligibility rules exist to protect fair competition and to ensure that the same rules apply to every student and every school.
The other students who competed during the 2024 season were entitled to that.
So were the teams that faced Newport Harbor in the playoffs and the athletes who competed for the honors ultimately awarded,” Watkins wrote in an August 22 letter to CIF Southern Section commissioner Mike West reviewed by SCNG.”The record is now clear,” Watkins continued in the letter to West. “Mr.
van der Woude has admitted under oath that Harvard-Westlake punished him, that the punishment included his exclusion from water polo, and that Harvard-Westlake’s refusal to permit his return caused him to transfer. CIF-SS’s own rules dictated the consequence of those facts.
Gợi ý thực hành:
1. Theo dõi thông báo từ cơ quan địa phương tại California.
2. Kiểm tra nguồn chính thức trước khi chia sẻ lại thông tin.