Sean Gardner, a former youth gymnastics coach, will be behind bars for what amounts to a life sentence, but the legal consequences will likely continue for years.
U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson on Wednesday sentenced Gardner, 39, to 90 years in prison for secretly recording her female students undressing and using the bathroom at a Mississippi gymnasium.
Gardner pleaded guilty in May to placing a hidden camera in a bathroom at a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Mississippi, between December 2017 and April 2018 to record gymnasts. FBI investigators seized about 50 videos and 400 photos from Gardner’s residence years later while investigating allegations that he sexually abused gymnasts in Iowa.
Johnson was not lenient toward Gardner, whose guilty plea allowed him to avoid a trial that likely could have resulted in the testimony of his minor victims. He will serve a 30-year sentence for each of three federal charges of producing child pornography, the maximum sentence allowed.
“This is one of the most reprehensible crimes prosecuted by my office,” said the United States Attorney. » said JE Baxter Kruger. “Coach Sean Gardner exploited his position to abuse and exploit the children he was responsible for mentoring and caring for.”
Several lawsuits are pending against Gardner, USA Gymnastics and Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute, a major training center in West Des Moines, Iowa, which hired Gardner as a youth coach in 2018. In addition to personally training the Midwest’s top young prospects, Gardner served as director of an annual winter competition that drew hundreds of gymnasts to Iowa.
SafeSport, a nonprofit organization created to prevent abuse of athletes and respond to allegations of misconduct, was dismissed as a defendant in two lawsuits filed by gymnasts who allege the organization failed to properly investigate Gardner. A judge determined in May that SafeSport was entitled to immunity under federal law.
The two gymnasts claim that they and other preteen and teenage girls were sexually assaulted by Gardner at Chow’s Gymnastics and that the sport’s watchdogs failed to stop his behavior despite complaints filed in December 2017. The lawsuits allege that the prominent coach and gym owner, Liang “Chow” Qiao, was informed that Gardner had hugged and kissed girls and engaged in other abusive behavior. grooming while coaching in Mississippi.
Court records obtained by the Associated Press show that Gardner was accused of sexually abusing at least three young gymnasts at Chow’s before leaving the organization in 2022. He was not charged in connection with the Iowa allegations because local authorities were waiting for him to be sentenced in the federal case.
“Every child deserves to feel safe and never be victimized by someone they trust,” said Robert A. Eikhoff, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Jackson, Mississippi, Field Office. “Sean Gardner’s wrongdoing of manipulating and abusing children and betraying the trust of their parents has come to an end.”
The federal case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a national initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood brings together federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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