Maryland Figure Skating Coach Pleads Not Guilty to Abuse in New York

A figure skating coach who competed at the Olympics for the Soviet Union has pleaded not guilty to charges he sexually abused a teenage student during a competition in New York's Lake Placid.

The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports 50-year-old Genrich Sretenski is due back in court in December after being released on $50,000 bail and allowed to return to Maryland, where he lives and coaches.

Terence Kindlon, Sretenski's New York lawyer, tells the newspaper the criminal charges involve the same 16-year-old girl whose family has filed a civil lawsuit against the coach in Maryland.

Sretenski is accused of fondling the girl in his hotel room at the competition in July.  

He was arraigned Friday in Essex County, N.Y., on a felony charge of first-degree sexual abuse and three misdemeanors.