The number of former Indiana University basketball players who say team doctor Bradford Bomba Sr. sexually assaulted them has risen to four.
And their lawsuit against their alma mater now includes an account from a fifth ex-IU basketball player who says he publicly complained to legendary coach Bobby Knight in 1979 about Bomba’s giving him unnecessary rectal examinations.
Knight, who led the Hoosiers from 1971 to 2000, told the unidentified player that he was required to have a physical and “took no action to address the player’s repeated complaints to him” about Bomba, the lawsuit says.
Kathleen Delaney, who represents the former players, filed the amended complaint in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana on Monday, adding Larry Richardson Jr., a fourth former player, to the list of plaintiffs. The lawsuit also includes a fifth account from an unnamed former player who is not a plaintiff. According to the fifth player’s account, he made a complaint to top officials in Indiana University’s athletic department about Bomba years before the abuse alleged by the plaintiffs.
IU spokesperson Mark Bode declined to comment on the latest allegations, including that Knight was told directly about allegations of abuse of players against Bomba 45 years ago at an Assembly Hall gathering. Bode instead pointed to a statement in September announcing that IU had hired a private law firm to conduct an “independent review” of the allegations.
“We ask for the IU Community to have patience as we search for the truth and to have confidence that the university’s actions will be consistent with our values,” the statement said.
The fifth former played alleged in the lawsuit that the team trainer at the time, Bob Young, and former IU football player George Taliaferro, who worked in the university president’s office at the time, were present when he reported the abuse to Knight.
“Bomba is a piece of s—,” Taliaferro is alleged to have told the gathering, according to the lawsuit.
Knight, Taliaferro and Young are all deceased.
Richardson, who is from Florida and played for the Hoosiers from 1995 to 2000, joined the class action lawsuit against the Indiana University Trustees and longtime men’s basketball trainer Tim Garl, which was originally filed in October with two plaintiffs, bringing the total to four accusers.
In the amended lawsuit, Richard, like the other accusers — John Flowers, Haris Mujezinovic and Charlie Miller — alleges that he was subjected to “systemic sexual assaults and sex-based harassment under the guise of medical care” by Bomba and that IU did nothing to protect them from a predator.
“When I enrolled in Indiana University, I was the first person in my family to go to college. At that age, I was used to doing what I was told to do. It disappoints me that people in authority at IU abused the trust I had in them,” Richardson said in a statement through his lawyer.
Richardson, who went on to play professional basketball in China, Argentina, Spain and Mexico, was 19 when Carl sent him to Bomba for a physical, the lawsuit says.
“Oh boy, get ready” one of Richardson’s teammates told him, without revealing that he was about to be subjected to an unnecessary prostate exam, the lawsuit says.
Richardson’s allegations echo those of Mujezinovic and Miller, who played for the Hoosiers in the 1990s, and Flowers, who was on the team from 1981 to 1982, according to the lawsuit.
Flowers, Mujezinovic, Miller and Richardson are suing the IU trustees and Garl under Title IX, a federal law that requires all colleges and universities that receive federal funds to put safeguards in place to protect students from sexual predators.
All are seeking unspecified damages and have urged former teammates to come forward and join their lawsuit.
Bomba, 88, is not listed as a defendant. In December, he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination dozens of times during a deposition when he was asked whether he performed rectal examinations on young athletes.
He agreed that he and Knight were “close friends,” but he invoked the Fifth again when he was asked whether Knight told him to perform “digital rectal exams on his players.”
Bomba provided medical care to all of the university’s sports teams from 1962 to 1970, and he was the basketball team’s doctor from 1979 until the late 1990s, according to the lawsuit.
Bomba, a former Indiana University football player, was nicknamed “Frankenstein” by coaches and players “due to the large size of his hands and fingers,” it adds.
“Dr. Bomba, Sr.’s routine sexual assaults were openly discussed by the Hoosier men’s basketball players in the locker room in the presence of IU employees, including assistant coaches, athletic trainers, and other Hoosier men’s basketball staff,” according to the lawsuit.
Bomba’s lawyer did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment on the amended lawsuit. Garl, who still works for the university, also did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
