Scott Shaw, former San Jose State athletic trainer and director of sports medicine, pleaded not guilty to six counts of allegedly violating and depriving female athletes of their civil rights during a Tuesday Zoom arraignment hearing.
He was released unsupervised with a $10,000 unsecured bond which requires that he refrain from committing local or state crimes or injuring or threatening informants, victims or jurors.
Shaw called into his first court hearing related to the sexual misconduct cases from an RV in Austin, Texas.
Each individual charge against Shaw, if convicted, includes a $1,000 fine, a $25 special assessment fee and a maximum sentence of one year, Susan van Keulen, Northern District Court of California magistrate, said during the hearing.
The charges alleged that Shaw violated the rights of four student athletes between 2017-20 by touching their breasts and buttocks without cause or consent, according to a Thursday Department of Justice news release.
Assistant United States Attorney Michael Pitman alleged Shaw used “his positioning as an athletic trainer to . . . assault [student athletes]” for more than a decade.
The charges against Shaw only span the last five years because the statute of limitations prevented filing pre-2017 charges, according to a Thursday USA Today article.
Shaw is permitted to continue to travel until he returns from a pre-planned road trip to the NCAA Frozen Four national Division I Men's Ice Hockey Championship in Boston next month.
“He has prepaid these tickets and it is his hope to the court that he could travel to Boston, Massachusetts and to return back,” Shaw’s attorney Sam Polverino said during the hearing.
Pitman raised concerns regarding Shaw’s ability to travel as part of his terms of release because he was part of a “decade-long scheme” to assault female student athletes and was thus “dangerous.”
“We expect that there’s a strong showing that the defendant will and does present a danger to the community,” Pitman said.
Susan van Keulen, United States District magistrate judge, agreed to the trip and allowed the travel restrictions to go into effect on April 20.
Pitman said information will be released with new "discoveries on the defendant" and it "may take time for the defense to look at it.”
Negotiations are pending for a protective order for new evidence, Pitman said.
A protective order, commonly called a restraining order, can protect someone from being sexually abused, threated, stalked, or harassed, according to the California Courts website.
As of Tuesday, the next court date is set on March 23 for a procedural hearing but the date will change and the case will be reassigned, Justice van Keulen said.
