At the end of 2017, Tatiana Gutsu publicly accused Vitaly Scherbo of raping her when they were both on the Soviet national team in 1991. Scherbo claimed the allegations were false and sued Gutsu for defamation. In a recent interview to tribuna.com he said that the allegations, nevertheless, did not hurt his business – Scherbo owns a USAG-member gymnastics school in Las Vegas and the only effect on the business was that he had to cancel his annual Invitational competition as there was less interest from potential competitors, especially international ones. In the past, many foreign gymnasts attended the competition, including some international elites.
When responding to the question if the allegations affected his image, Scherbo said:
“Yes. Parents didn’t take their children from their school. People who bring their children to the gym know me well. But her words really hurt the international competition I organized. Fewer children would come and I had to give the competition up. You understand, I cannot comment on this story. I sued Gutsu and as a result, we made an agreement according to which neither I nor she can give comments about each other to the media. If she breaks the agreement, there will be another lawsuit. Such stories really spoiled reputations of many people. And some claims were made to take someone out of the business. After all, you don’t need proof here. One [female] will tell bullshit; others, who are don’t know about the situation, will believe [it], and the damage has already been done.”
It seems that while Scherbo cannot comment one the specific situation, he is free to give comments on general situations of rape allegations and paint the whole group of rape victims and not just one person as liars.
