Attorney rips USA Gymnastics amid lawsuit over alleged failure to protect athletes from sexual abuse
USA Gymnastics is facing another lawsuit for allegedly failing to protect female athletes from sexual abuse. The latest lawsuit alleges USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport were informed about a coach, Sean Gardner, performing "inappropriate and abusive behaviors," but failed to properly investigate.
The attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case, John Manly, who previously represented stars including Simone Biles in the Larry Nassar sexual abuse lawsuit against USA Gymnastics, called the organization's negligence "despicable," in a statement to Fox News Digital.
"USA Gymnastics was aware of in 2017 that Gardner was a serious & present danger to children. USAG said nothing and permitted a predator to prey upon children in Iowa without warning to parents. Their conduct is shocking and despicable," Manly said.
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A USA Gymnastics spokesperson told Fox News Digital in response, "As litigation is ongoing, we cannot offer comment."
The lawsuits allege all the defendants were negligent in how they responded to reports of Gardner’s misconduct, which included hugging and kissing girls and engaging in other grooming behaviors while coaching at a Mississippi gym.
The parents of a gymnast filed reports with USA Gymnastics and SafeSport in December 2017 alleging Gardner required girls to give him long hugs after every training in Mississippi and that he kicked one girl out who refused, the lawsuits claim.
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Gardner allegedly had an improper closed-door meeting with a girl whom he verbally abused, kissed gymnasts on their foreheads, drank alcohol excessively in front of them, made sexual jokes to girls and inappropriate comments on social media, and stalked one girl who he was instructed to stop contacting, the lawsuits claim.
The FBI arrested Gardner in August on a federal child pornography charge.
The arrest came more than three years after he was suspended from coaching at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, for alleged sexual abuse.
Chow’s is the gym where U.S. gymnastics stars Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas trained before becoming gold medalists at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
In April 2024, another of Chow’s former athletes came forward to the West Des Moines Police Department to report abuse allegations, according to a now-sealed affidavit signed by police detective Jeff Lyon.
A girl reported to SafeSport in March 2022 that Gardner used "inappropriate spotting techniques" in which he would put his hands between her legs, the affidavit said.
Among the evidence seized by investigators in late May was a cellphone, laptop and a desktop computer along with handwritten notes between Gardner and his former pupils, according to the sealed court documents.
They found images of girls, approximately 6 to 14 years of age, who were nude, using the toilet or changing into leotards, those documents show. Those images appear to have come from a hidden camera in a restroom.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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