A former prominent youth gymnastics coach was sentenced Wednesday to 90 years in prison for secretly recording his young female students undressing and using the bathroom at a Mississippi gym, in a case that shook the sport.
U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson imposed the maximum sentence possible on Sean Gardner, ordering him to serve 30 years in prison for each of three federal child pornography production charges to which he pleaded guilty. The sentence is likely equivalent to life in prison for Gardner, 39.
Gardner’s arrest last summer by the FBIfirst reported by the Associated Press, renewed questions about whether U.S. gymnastics authorities had done enough to protect athletes from sexual abuse by an influential coach.
Gardner pleaded guilty to placing a hidden camera in a bathroom at a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Mississippi, between December 2017 and April 2018 to record his students. Investigators say he created videos showing close-up images of at least 10 naked or undressed minors, which they recovered from his computers years later while investigating allegations that he sexually abused gymnasts in Iowa.
Investigators seized approximately 50 videos and 400 photos from Gardner’s residence as evidence, according to an FBI affidavit. Gardner was allegedly seen turning off the camera in one of the videos.
Several of his former students at the Chow Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, have alleged to police and in civil lawsuits that he used his position to prey on them. The institute was founded by prominent coach Liang “Chow” Qiao, known for producing Olympic champions. Gardner coached several young hopefuls and served as director of an annual winter competition that drew hundreds of gymnasts to Iowa.
Gardner has not been charged in connection with any of the Iowa allegations, and police said they will wait to determine how to proceed after the federal case is concluded.
One of Gardner’s former students told CBS News in May 2026 Because Gardner was charismatic and she was so young, she didn’t realize her coach’s behavior was abnormal, especially at the end of training.
“Every one of us was lining up to get a hug, he was kissing us on the forehead and patting our butts,” said Liberty Raines, who was 11 when she joined Jump’In Gymnastics in Purvis.
She added that this ritual ends almost all practices. “It was so normalized,” Raines said. “I don’t think any of us thought about that.”
The mother of another young Mississippi gymnast alerted USA Gymnastics via email of her concerns about Gardner’s behavior. Separately, Gardner’s boss in Mississippi said in an email that she spoke to USA Gymnastics about Gardner’s “grooming behavior” in January 2018.
Gardner then moved to Chow’s gym in Iowa in 2018, where he began training Finley Weldon, a talented 11-year-old gymnast with Olympic aspirations. Weldon told CBS News in an interview last year that Gardner acted “weird” from the start, making inappropriate jokes and questioning the teenage girls about their sex lives.
“I knew something was seriously wrong with him,” Weldon said.
Weldon says Gardner touched her inappropriately while she stretched and while he spotted her during her gymnastics practice.
The civil lawsuits against Gardner allege that the sport’s watchdog, USA Gymnastics and the US Center for SafeSport, learned of Gardner’s inappropriate behavior in 2017 but failed to take action to remove him from the sport for years. SafeSport temporarily suspended Gardner in 2022 after a Chow gymnast alleged sexual abuse, and Chow then fired him.
SafeSport said it learned during its investigation that Chow and other coaches were aware of the sexual misconduct allegations against Gardner but failed to report them to the center as its policy requires.
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