After learning that former Walt Whitman High School teacher and rowing coach had pleaded guilty to sexual abuse of a former student and athlete, the Network for Victim Recovery of DC (NVRDC) said the female students involved “are glad.”
Kirk Shipley pleaded guilty last week to one count of first degree sexual abuse of a secondary education student and possessing sexually explicit material of a 17-year-old former high school student.
The victim recovery organization “and our clients are glad that Defendant Shipley accepted responsibility for the abuse he inflicted and we will be spending the next few months preparing for the sentencing phase,” NVRDC wrote in a tweet to MyMCM.
NVRDC also wrote, “During this time, we would kindly ask the public and media to continue respecting our clients’ privacy. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the United States Attorney’s Office, and specifically Sharon Marcus-Kurn and Caroline Burrell, for their tremendous support and professionalism throughout this matter.”
Shipley, 48, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia and will be sentenced Sept. 9. As part of that sentencing, he will be required to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.
According to the government’s evidence, one of the victims was on the girls’ crew team from 2014 to 2018. Shipley was the victim’s head coach from her sophomore year to her senior year as well as her history and geography teacher. Another female member of the crew team from 2009 to 2013 also was a victim, according to the government. Shipley was her head coach during her sophomore through senior years and was her history teacher during her junior year.
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