OPINION: Varlamov, Manning not the victims; neither are their accusers

A few weeks ago, the trial for a civil suit against Semyon Varlamov came to a close. The seven-person jury unanimously found in favor of the Avalanche goaltender, going as far as to award him damages in the amount of his attorney’s fees. The plaintiff, former girlfriend Evgeniya Vavrinyuk, was found guilty of Malicious Prosecution—intentionally and maliciously filing a legal action that has no probable cause. In other words, the jury did not believe Vavrinyuk’s story that Varlamov severely and purposefully beat her on the morning of October 29, 2013.

I, along with BSN Avalanche editor AJ Haefele, covered the trial each day from gavel to gavel. (You can read our final recap here; it has links to all previous posts about the trial.) It was an exhausting six days, and while I had planned on publishing an opinion piece at its close, I was honestly too emotionally drained to do so.

Then BSN Denver dropped a bombshell of a post last week about Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning’s accuser, Jamie Naughright, who claims Manning sexually harassed her 20 years ago. Reading it brought back all the thoughts I’d had at the conclusion of Varlamov’s trial, and I decided I needed to publish the piece after all.

I wanted to believe Evgeniya Vavrinyuk. I really did. It’s not that I wanted Semyon Varlamov to be guilty, to have done these horrible things. It’s just that my gut reaction to hearing a woman say she’s been abused is to believe her.

So many women are subjected to assault—when you combine domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual harassment, the numbers are staggering—and, unfortunately, most assaults happen in private where only the woman and the man are present, often leaving very little tangible evidence of what took place. This results in the majority of cases either not being reported, not being believed, or not being prosecuted. That’s why my gut reaction is to believe the victim. She (or he, as men are subjected to abuse more than we think) will have enormous emotional, mental and physical challenges getting through the reporting process, so another supportive voice could help make a difference, however small, for her.

As a fan of Varlamov, however, it was a blow. Thinking that this player whom I admired and celebrated was capable of stomping on a woman and dragging her around by her hair, actions Vavrinyuk claimed he had done, was devastating. My experience with domestic violence, though, had shown me that women rarely make false accusations, so I sighed and accepted that one of “my guys” wasn’t a good person.

As details about the incident started to come out, I was forced to take a step back and re-evaluate my take on the situation. The new information didn’t seem to fit Vavrinyuk’s story. For example, her body should have been riddled with bruises if Varlamov had beaten her as severely as she said. But it wasn’t. In fact, she had no visible bruises at all, and the description of the damage to parts of her body we couldn’t see in interviews or public pictures presented an image of mild bruising at worst.

In addition, her behavior significantly lacked those tell-tale signs of abuse: a reluctance to come forward, fear, self-loathing, a sense of desperation, anxiety. Instead, Vavrinyuk looked calm, confident and even strong in some interviews. As a result, doubt crept into my mind, yet my gut still said, “Believe her.”

It wasn’t long before circumstantial evidence started piling up that cast a very long shadow of doubt, so long, in fact, I no longer believed things happened as she described them. People came forward, including close friends of Vavrinyuk’s, to share past conversations they’d had with her in which she described how much money she could now get from Varlamov and that she’d be able to stay in the United States because of her allegations, something she’d said repeatedly that she wanted.

It was revealed that the person she turned to first after the alleged beating, Diana Senova, was a new friend who just happened to be engaged to an attorney. Vavrinyuk was also being paid for media interviews that she and her lawyer sought out. Shortly thereafter, the criminal case was dropped due to a lack of evidence, and I came to the conclusion that Vavrinyuk was not beaten as she described.

Still, I walked into the courtroom in January 2016 feeling that something happened and that, while Varlamov was not the monster she made him out to be, this something suggested he wasn’t necessarily a good guy, either.

That began to change from the first day of testimony, and with each subsequent day, my belief in his innocence grew. The evidence presented painted a very clear picture of what happened, and it wasn’t remotely like what Vavrinyuk said.

She admitted to lying to the police in her report about the severity of his actions and who started the physical altercation. Now, instead of him stomping on her, he used his foot to push her away from him and onto the floor. Instead of attacking her first, she punched him in the face twice before he had even touched her. He didn’t chase her around; she chased him.

Vavrinyuk had a number of friends in Denver, not just Senova as she had claimed. Moreover, she had met Senova for the first time the day before the incident, making her more of an acquaintance than a friend, and Vavrinyuk had learned in that first meeting that Senova’s fiancé, Robert Abrams, was a civil attorney. One day after the incident, Vavrinyuk signed a contract for Abrams to represent her in a civil suit against Varlamov despite repeatedly telling the police in the weeks that followed that she was interested only in justice, not money.

Multiple people testified and video evidence showed that Varlamov was not exceedingly drunk or sporting a torn and dirty costume upon returning home, as Vavrinyuk claimed. Both Vavrinyuk’s and Varlamov’s bruises matched his story, not hers, a story that indicated he was trying to defend himself against her attack, not the other way around.

Documents and comments by witnesses like Senova showed that Vavrinyuk desperately wanted to stay in the United States and supported herself off of money given to her by other people. Testimony after testimony tilted the entire incident in Varlamov’s favor, and I began to realize that what had actually happened was nothing like she reported to the police or claimed in her many interviews.

As the case wrapped up, I asked myself, “If you were on the jury, what would be your verdict?” Two words came back loud and strong: for Varlamov.

When the jury returned after a day of deliberation, we found out they had unanimously come to the same conclusion I had, and rather than feeling happy about the outcome, I found myself extremely sad and angered. This was not because Varlamov was treated unfairly—which he was, make no mistake—and not because of the enormous miscarriage of justice this whole exercise created—which it did—but because of the damage Evgeniya Vavrinyuk has caused.

Yes, the obvious and most immediate damage is to Varlamov himself. No matter what came out of this trial or how the jury sided, he will always be labeled a monstrous wife beater by some people. Many out there will disregard the evidence and believe Vavrinyuk’s story relentlessly.

But Varlamov is not the biggest victim here. He’s not the one most damaged by Vavrinyuk’s lies. More than anyone, Vavrinyuk has hurt the next victim of domestic violence, especially one assaulted by a professional athlete.

That woman will be doubted even more now, and she will be called a whore and a gold digger and worse louder and more often than she would have before. She will be vilified to a degree far more egregious than she would have been if Vavrinyuk did not go after Varlamov via the court system like she did. Just as there are those who will always believe Varlamov did it, there are those who will always believe the next athlete accused of assaulting a woman could not possibly have done it, and sadly, they’ll point to this case to help prove their point.

Evgeniya Vavrinyuk is part of that small percentage of women who falsely accuse another of domestic violence. She’s a very vocal and public part of that group, which makes it worse. And she has just wreaked havoc on every woman with a legitimate case. Women should be steaming with anger at Vavrinyuk as she has paved the way for more victim blaming. Vavrinyuk is not the victim here, and really, neither is Varlamov. The victims are women—all women, as we never know who will be the next one abused.

Reread those last three paragraphs again, but substitute Evgeniya Vavrinyuk with Jamie Naughright, Semyon Varlamov with Peyton Manning, and domestic violence with sexual harassment. Sadly, it all fits perfectly. If what Brandon Spano suggests in his article is true, Naughright has, like Vavrinyuk, victimized women with false accusations born out of greed. True victims will have a harder time finding justice because of these two women, and we all—men and women—should be absolutely livid about it.

But what do we do with our anger? Do we attack these women, trying to publicly shame them? Of course not. That won’t help. Instead, we should focus our energy on supporting victims and giving them an opportunity to tell their stories safely, free from ridicule and blame.