A court has ordered an 88-year-old doctor who is suspected of sexually abusing basketball players at Indiana University in the 1990s to appear before him on Tuesday in order to assess his capacity to be questioned over the alleged abuse.
According to an order filed Monday, Dr. Bradford Bomba Sr. will appear before Magistrate Judge Mario Garcia at the federal courtroom in Indianapolis to evaluate his capacity to testify during a deposition.
Garcia made the decision after Joseph Bomba, Bomba’s guardian, requested that the deposition be postponed, claiming in court documents dated November 27 that the former IU team doctor is incapable of testifying because he lacks the mental capacity to distinguish between truth and falsity.
Bomba had been seen by IU Health psychiatrist Dr. George Parker, according to the doctor’s guardian.
The development occurred two months after Charlie Miller and Haris Mujezinovic, who played for the Hoosiers under the renowned coach Bob Knight in the 1990s, sued their coaches and trainers in the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana, claiming that they knew Bomba was exposing basketball players to needless prostate exams and did nothing to stop him.
Mujezinovic and Miller’s attorney, Kathleen Delaney, stated in the lawsuit that there may be as many as 100 alleged victims.
Delaney accused Indiana University of violating Title IX by failing to safeguard the students, and he designated the university’s trustees as defendants in the case. Universities that accept federal assistance are obligated by that federal legislation to have safety measures in place to safeguard students against predators.
Indiana University responded by hiring the Jones Day law firm to conduct an impartial inquiry into the Bomba claims.
Bomba is not named in the list of defendants.Knight passed away at age 83 last year.
Delaney declined to comment on the most recent development in a case that has unnecessarily brought attention to Bomba, the 20-year physician for the men’s basketball team, and the renowned basketball program at the institution.
An NBC News request for comment was not immediately answered by William J. Beggs, the Bloomington, Indiana attorney who has been representing Bomba, according to the court documents.
According to the lawsuit, Bomba was employed by Indiana University to provide medical care for all of its sports teams from 1962 to 1970. From 1979 until the late 1990s, he served as the team’s doctor for basketball.
In their case, Mujezinovic and Miller claimed that Bomba frequently and routinely performed abusive, intrusive, and medically unwarranted digital rectal examinations on them. According to the lawsuit, the doctor was known as Frankenstein by coaches and players because of the size of his hands and fingers when playing football for Indiana University.
The lawsuit claims that the Hoosier men’s basketball players freely discussed Dr. Bomba, Sr.’s frequent sexual assaults in the locker room while IU staff members, such as assistant coaches, athletic trainers, and other Hoosier men’s basketball staff, were there.
Miller, who played for the Hoosiers from 1994 to 1998, and Mujezinovic, who played for Indiana for two seasons from 1995 to 1997, are requesting undisclosed damages. Additionally, they have pushed their former teammates to join the lawsuit by coming forward.
According to the American Cancer Society, males over 40 should typically have prostate exams.
However, according to the lawsuit, Bomba conducted them on the athletes in their twenties who were referred to him or his son, Dr. Bradford Bomba Jr., for medical examinations.
Bomba’s kid is not accused of any misconduct in the complaint.
The claims that IU ignored claims of a team doctor sexually abusing student-athletes are reminiscent of another significant team doctor controversy. Former wrestlers at Ohio State University said in 2018 that their coaches were aware of Dr. Richard Strauss’s predatory behavior but did nothing about it. In 2005, Strauss passed away.
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