Bloody Elbow has had plenty in 2013 about well-known martial arts instructor Lloyd Irvin and the controversy surrounding him in the wake of two of his male students being charged with rape after a New Year’s Eve incident involving a female student. Those two students, Matthew Maldonado and Nicholas Schultz, were ultimately found not guilty last month. But Irvin’s involvement in the 1989 gang rape of a college woman — Irvin was acquitted in that case but admitted to wanting to participate in what he claimed was consensual sex while at least four others involved were found guilty — surfaced in the wake of the NYE incident.
From there the story took several more turns that ultimately saw him lose the bulk of his top students, allegations of improper sexual behavior, revelations of charges against other members of his team, a million and a half dollars in tax liens and much more (which can all be read in our story stream).
Jake Rossen has been working for some time on a piece covering the Irvin situation and that article — titled “The Cult of Lloyd Irvin” — is now up on the website of the Miami New Times.
There are some disturbing details throughout the story.
One story involved the “sense of sexual entitlement” seemingly felt by Irvin and male members of the team:
A woman didn’t have to be enrolled in Irvin’s school to catch his eye. Several students allege that Irvin made advances on wives or girlfriends, despite being married since 2003 to his wife, Vicki Irvin. Escobar recalls introducing Irvin to his girlfriend at a club, then leaving them to talk about a potential business opportunity. He looked back to see Irvin with his arm around her. She walked away, telling Escobar that Irvin had invited her to his hotel room.
“No disrespect, but were you hitting on my girlfriend?” Escobar asked him.
“Don’t worry about her,” he recalls Irvin saying. “She’ll be all right.”
Irvin’s students felt a similar sense of sexual entitlement. One former girlfriend of Schultz, who asked not to be named, recalls that some of the men living in the fighter house asked him if she could “come around.”
Knowing what that meant, he declined. According to Schultz and his ex-girlfriend, athletes would sometimes bring dates back to the fighter house, where weed or ecstasy would be passed around. So would the date. Pictures would be taken. It was, in the words of a source who asked to remain anonymous, “Vegas meets jiu-jitsu.”
Back in March Bloody Elbow also discussed how DJ Jackson had been charged with sexual assault in 2008. Despite multiple requests by phone and mail for the exact details of the charges we received no response. Rossen, however, was able to get the info:
Some things were more serious than others. In 2008, one of Irvin’s most promising pupils, De’Alonzio “DJ” Jackson, then 19, left Maryland to attend college in Iowa. According to police reports, Jackson invited a 16-year-old girl to the Double D bar for college night. When she and a friend picked him up, he gave her some Bacardi he produced from a backpack.
After spending some time in the Double D, they went outside to a car. The girl told police that Jackson penetrated her even as she repeatedly told him to stop.
The next morning, the 16-year-old awoke with a headache that she suspected might be drug-induced. She told her foster mother, who informed authorities. When questioned, Jackson denied giving her alcohol, drugs or forcing himself on her.
The day after the incident, police discovered he sent her a text: “I’m sorry I took ur virginity like that. Plz give me another chance.”
There’s much more throughout the article, including more firsthand accounts of life in the Lloyd Irvin inner circle. The sense of lost power by the students, bizarre treatment of females and the fear felt by students who left the Medal Chasers home.
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