The former track coach accused of sexually assaulting a University of Arizona student athlete sued the student’s attorney for defamation this week.
Craig Carter and his wife, Jo-Anne Carter, claim Tucson-based lawyer Lynne Cadigan lied to the news media and cast him in a false light when she said Carter’s relationship with the student athlete was sexually abusive, never consensual, and ruined the student’s chances at becoming an Olympic athlete.
Carter faces criminal charges in Pima County Superior Court of domestic violence-aggravated assault, stalking, and interfering with an educational institution.
Police records say Carter, 48, put a box cutter to the athlete’s throat and choked her in his office on April 27, 2015, sent her threatening emails and went to one of her classes and tried to drag her out the following week.
While records say he admitted to the crimes, he hasn’t been convicted and pleaded not guilty.
In his June 15 lawsuit, filed by attorney John F. Munger, the Carters are asking a Pima County Superior Court judge to award them unspecified punitive damages, saying Cadigan’s comments to the news media were “the product of a depraved and evil mind.”
In November, the student athlete filed a civil lawsuit against Carter and UA officials, alleging the university failed to protect her from repeated rapes by Carter. Carter and his wife countersued, claiming the student athlete’s allegations caused them emotional distress.
In response to the June 15 complaint, Cadigan’s lawyer, Donald Wilson, Jr. told the Star the complaint was “crazy.”
“For an indicted individual alleged to have assaulted this woman to then sue the woman, the alleged victim, turns the world on its head,” Wilson. “And in an even more stunning display of arrogance, for this individual, the aggressor, to sue the victim’s lawyer, it’s crazy.”
Police said they uncovered at least 57 texts and emails Carter sent to the woman between April 26 and May 1, 2015, four of which contained threatening statements.
One of them, sent on April 28, 2015, said in part, “If I break into your house to see you then I will have to kill both of us because after breaking in I would go to jail and lose my job and so I may as well be dead.”
Carter resigned as UA throwing coach in May 2015. He was released shortly after his arrest in May on a $40,000 bond.
The Star is not identifying the student athlete, who graduated last year and is living outside of Arizona, because she says she was the victim of a sex crime.
