Jury awards $12.5 million to Twin Cities girl sexually abused by her figure skating coach

A Hennepin County jury awarded $12.5 million in damages to a Twin Cities woman who was sexually abused by her figure skating coach over the course of two years, starting when she was 14 years old.

After a 10-day trial, the jury determined that Thomas Incantalupo owed his former athlete $7.5 million for past mental and emotional harm, $2.5 million for future mental and emotional harm and $2.5 million as punishment for his behavior.

Incantalupo pleaded guilty to one count each of first- and third-degree criminal sexual conduct in 2019 for his crime. He is serving a 24-year sentence at Stillwater prison.

Michael Hall III, the attorney for the woman in the case, whom the Star Tribune is not naming because she was a minor victim of sexual abuse, said the trial featured Incantalupo’s attorneys saying his victim was making her story up. He also said Incantalupo argued for the first time that he had been secretly gay his entire adult life and, therefore, couldn’t have sexually assaulted the girl.

His victim said he abused her at least 80 times.

“It was obviously emotionally difficult to do that,” Hall III said of his client’s testimony. “On the other hand, there is something to be said for when a verdict comes back in your favor and acknowledges what happened. I know that she’s deeply grateful for what the jury decided.”

Incantalupo was a highly regarded figure skating coach who had a long history as a skater and member of U.S. Figure Skating. He had coached in Blaine before working at Braemar Figure Skating Club and Eden Prairie Figure Skating Club. He started coaching in 1990, was a master-rated free-skate coach and a coach for Team USA in 2008 and 2010, according to a deleted page on the Eden Prairie Figure Skating Club website. His bio said he performed on multiple TV networks.

Investigators found he had rented out rooms at the hotel multiple times over the two years the abuse allegedly occurred. Hall III said during the civil trial that Incantalupo argued he rented the rooms at the hotel so he could smoke pot because his wife didn’t like him doing it at home.

Hall III said that during closing statements, Incantalupo’s attorney, Kevin Riach, described his own client’s story as “strange, peculiar and weird.”

Riach declined to comment Thursday.

The jury was not asked to determine the number of times that abuse occurred — Incantalupo has argued he only abused the girl twice — but Hall III said the damages spoke to the jury’s belief in his client’s allegations of dozens of instances of abuse.

While this stage of the trial is completed, an appeal remains likely by Hall III on behalf of his client.

The victim had argued that the figure skating clubs were negligent in failing to ban one-on-one unchaperoned travel for minors with their coaches because the clubs knew there was a risk of abuse between coaches and skaters. The victim also argued the clubs had not properly educated parents on the heightened risk of abuse without chaperones. She also presented cases in California that have ruled negligence can exist “between a child and a national governing organization,” and compared the relationship between coach and athlete to similar cases in Minnesota regarding children in schools and daycares.

Browne rejected those arguments, ruling the California cases had no bearing on Minnesota law. He also ruled that because the parents, not the skating clubs, had hired Incantalupo and the clubs were only renting out space for the coach to work with the girl — and none of the abuse happened on those rinks — there was no negligence.

Prior to his arrest in this case, Incantalupo had passed all background checks with SafeSport and had no abuse claims against him. The parents had agreed he could chaperone their daughter on figure skating trips.

“For a special relationship to exist in this case, some amount of custody or responsibility must have been transferred to the [skating organizations],” Browne wrote. “While custody and responsibility was certainly transferred to Incantalupo, there is no evidence that it was shared with the [skating organizations].”

Browne ruled that the organizations therefore had “no duty to protect” the girl from Incantalupo’s abuse.

When he was sentenced after his criminal trial, Incantalupo cried and offered apologies to the court, the skating community, his victim and her family.

His victim told the court she had looked up to him as a father figure.

“Even before Tom sexually assaulted me, he started crossing my boundaries and invading my privacy,” she said. “He would take my phone and look through my messages. He was harassing me about social media. He would yell at me until I cried.”

Incantalupo emotionally and sexually abused her, she said, isolating her from her friends and family. The fact that so many people in the sport “loved” Incantalupo made it even more difficult to speak up.

He stalked her, posing as a teenage boy on social media in order to spread hurtful rumors about her to her classmates.

After Incantalupo was sentenced, Klein said, “Throughout the world of figure skating, children are still at risk” and alleged that U.S. Figure Skating has a “long and shameful history” of putting money, medals and coaches’ reputations above children’s safety.

At the time, U.S. Figure Skating released a statement that said, “U.S. Figure Skating stands with and supports the skater who bravely came forward after years of abuse by Thomas Incantalupo. By sharing the disturbing details of his grooming process and resulting sexual abuse, her voice and strength have put Incantalupo behind bars for his abhorrent crimes and provided other athletes and families the warning signs of grooming and abuse.”