Attorney hired by Republicans for Kavanaugh hearing advised USOC’s Safe Sport on sexual abuse

Three years before Arizona sex crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell was thrust into the national spotlight this week, she advised the U.S. Olympic Committee’s Safe Sport program.

“Rachel explains that the first step in the process is selecting a victim, or targeting a victim, and that there are a lot of different things that offenders look for. She says that offenders are looking for vulnerability in that particular child,” according to a summary of a 2015 video titled “Safe Sport Refresher Course” that Mitchell took part in. The video was part of a USOC Safe Sport training course.

Mitchell was hired by Republican members of the Senate judiciary committee to question Christine Blasey Ford during the committee’s hearing Thursday about her allegations that she was sexually assaulted by Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh when they were teenagers in 1982.

Related: Rachel Mitchell described as tough, experienced and objective

Mitchell will question Kavanaugh separately during Thursday’s hearing.

Mitchell is currently on leave from her position as a deputy county attorney and chief of the Special Victims Division in the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office in Phoenix. The Special Victims Division handles sex crimes and domestic violence.

She has prosecuted cases involving adult sexual assault, child molestation and child prostitution since 2005.

Mitchell caught the attention of the USOC earlier this decade. She was brought in by the organization’s SafeSport program, which was “designed to help us recognize emotional, physical and sexual misconduct.”

Mitchell participated in a training video that “examines the coach-athlete relationship; it defines the six primary forms of misconduct: bullying, harassment, and hazing, as well as emotional, physical, and sexual misconduct. It describes sexual abuse and identifies the signs and symptoms of sexual abuse and discusses how to respond and report misconduct.”

Mitchell outlined “Grooming Behaviors” in the video, outlining “the distinctive and identifiable behavior grooming process.”  She covers six key steps in the grooming process: targeting a victim, gaining trust, recognizing and filling a need, isolating a child, sexualizing the relationship and maintaining control.

In Step 2, Mitchell “ explains that next, the predator will work on gaining the trust of the athlete, since one of the key things that predators need in order to accomplish their crime is the trust of the victim.”

The Safe Sport training also states that “Predators frequently target athletes in ‘private’ spaces, such as locker rooms, bathroom facilities and other unmonitored spaces, such as a personal office.”

There are similarities to the led to Thursday’s hearing and Mitchell’s first major sexual abuse case in 2005. That case involved the prosecution of former Catholic priest Paul LeBrun, who was charged with sexually abusing six boys between the ages 11 and 13 in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

LeBrun’s attorney called his prosecution a “witch hunt,” according to the Arizona Republic newspaper, echoing charges that would have been made regarding the Kavanaugh case 13 years later.

Mitchell, in her first case as chief of the Maricopa County sex crimes unit, convinced the trial judge to hear the testimony of two men LeBrun had sexually abused in Indiana before being transferred to Phoenix. Although the statute of limitations in the Indiana cases had expired, Mitchell maintain the men’s accounts established a pattern of sexually abusing young boys by LeBrun. The judge agreed.

LeBrun was sentenced to 11 years in prison after a jury found him guilty of three counts of sexual contact with a minor and three counts of child molestation.