The long-running legal drama connected with dressage trainer Michael Barisone continues, nearly four years after he was found not guilty by reason of insanity on an attempted second-degree murder charge involving the 2019 shooting of a tenant at his farm.
Last week, he decided to appeal a decision by the U.S. Center for SafeSport that would make him permanently ineligible to be on the grounds of U.S. Equestrian Federation licensed, endorsed or sponsored competitions. It supercedes what was previously a temporary suspension. SafeSport stated the reasons for the new sanction as “sexual harassment; emotional misconduct and violation of national governing body policies/bylaws.”
However, SafeSport’s notice of the penalty stated it was not final and subject to appeal.
Meanwhile, a November lawsuit which amended a previous complaint filed by Barisone’s lawyer, Steven Tarshis, against the U.S. Equestrian Federation contended USEF had failed in its duty to Barisone by not taking action against Kanarek when he informed the organization that she was threatening him. The lawsuit also includes information about three women, one of whom was not a USEF member, who got harassing messages from Kanarek. The lawsuit stated no investigation was undertaken by the Federation when the women reported Kanarek’s actions.
That “clearly violates USEF’s Governing Documents, including published rules and member protection standards,” Barisone alleged in his lawsuit.
“USEF failed to take appropriate action, initiate required procedures, or enforce its disciplinary mechanisms, thereby breaching its obligations to protect the Claimants (the three women) and the Plaintiff, and maintain a safe and ethical equestrian environment.”
The lawsuit contends “the inescapable fact is that had the USEF met its legal obligation under the SafeSport Act and/or its Governing Documents, the only reasonable conclusion one could reach is that Kanarek’s Temporary Suspension would have summarily been imposed upon her by the USEF and an investigation would have commenced leading to the wealth of irrefutable evidence of her habitual violation of the SafeSport Code of Conduct and the Governing Documents of the USEF which, without a doubt, would have led to a more permanent sanction or lifetime ban imposed upon her in 2018, or at the latest, early 2019.
“Such sanctions would have become public knowledge and would have prohibited, under the SafeSport Code, other USEF members, and professionals, including the Plaintiff, from engaging in any professional equestrian activities with Kanarek, including her training.”
But in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, USEF termed it, “the latest chapter in the on-going, ill-fated saga by which Plaintiff Michael Barisone seeks to hold others accountable for his attempted murder of Lauren Kanarek.”
USEF cited previous suits by Barisone against “more than one dozen disparate individuals and entities” including Kanarek and her immediate family.
A psychiatrist testified during Barisone’s 2022 trial that Barisone felt threated by Kanarek and her boyfriend, fearing he would be killed and wanting to defend himself. When Kanarek, who was also a student at Barisone’s farm in Long Valley, N.J., was asked during the trial whether she was bent on destroying him, she answered, “at some point, yes.”
The Federation termed as “pure speculation” Barisone’s contention “that the USEF’s alleged failure to refer earlier complaints about Ms. Kanarek to the U.S. Center for SafeSport would, ‘without a doubt,’ have resulted in the imposition of sanctions upon, or a lifetime ban against, Ms. Kanarek that, in turn, would have required Plaintiff to terminate his relationship with her before it reached its boiling point and he shot her.”
The USEF contended that “Because there is simply no ‘connective tissue’ between the USEF’s alleged responsibility to suspend and/or report Ms. Kanarek to the U.S. Center for SafeSport (a responsibility which did not exist) and Mr. Barisone’s decision to shoot Ms. Kanarek, this action should be swiftly dismissed with prejudice, and allowed to take its place alongside the numerous other legal challenges Plaintiff has desperately filed arising from his shooting of Ms. Kanarek.”
Tarshis, who has until Jan. 23 to file a response to the USEF motion to dismiss, noted in an interview that “the cause of the insanity seems to always be overlooked, that she drove him crazy. The campaign of terror that she wreaked upon him for well over a year that caused (him) to be insane.
“This lawsuit is very simple; under the governing documents of an NGB (national governing body of a sport), does an NGB have a responsibility to protect one of its members…(from) a known, perceived and well-documented danger that has been presented to them over and over? That is what this case is about.”
He added, “the incidents where there are confrontations between members are unfortunately not a rarity. It happens a lot. You’re telling me you as a governing body for my sport doesn’t have an obligation to protect me? Where do I go, if not to you?”