When a young coach from Mississippi arrived to Iowa in 2018 to work at an exclusive institution that trains Olympic winners, the U.S. gymnastics community was still reeling from a catastrophic sexual abuse scandal.
Sean Gardner was hired by Liang Chow Qiao, the owner of Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, who was so impressed with him that he assigned him to teach some of the club’s most talented girls and oversee its main junior event.
With NBC 7, you can watch San Diego News for free, anywhere, at any time.
However, Gardner left Chow’s with little warning four years later.
The watchdog group had notified USA Gymnastics, the organization shattered by the Larry Nassar sex-abuse scandal that spawned the U.S. Center for SafeSport, that Gardner had been barred from all interactions with gymnasts.
Gardner’s departure was not explained for what cause. However, court documents that The Associated Press has obtained reveal that the coach was charged with secretly filming others undressing in a gym restroom at his previous position in Mississippi and sexually abusing at least three juvenile gymnasts at Chow’s.
Gardner, 38, was arrested by the FBI last week on a federal child pornography accusation, more than three years after he was suspended from coaching. However, SafeSport, which deals with sex-abuse claims in Olympic sports, has yet to conclude his disciplinary case.
While SafeSport looks into and punishes coaches in situations like Gardner’s, the public may remain in the dark for years. To make sure abusers don’t go unpunished outside of sports, SafeSport mandates that claims be reported to the police. However, detractors claim the system is a convoluted and cumbersome procedure.
From an operational perspective, it appears that any involvement by SafeSport makes the situation toxic, according to lawyer Steve Silvey, a longtime critic of SafeSport who has defended clients in instances involving the center.
In a statement, SafeSport justified its temporary suspensions as a special and beneficial intervention when there are fears of a risk to others, even though it acknowledged that there may be delays as its investigations progress.
However, two years after SafeSport and the police were informed of the abuse claims against him, Gardner was able to secure a position in 2024 assisting with the care of surgical patients at a hospital in Iowa.
Additionally, according to court documents, West Des Moines police did not execute a search order at his residence until late May, which ultimately resulted in the discovery of a wealth of images and videos of young girls in nudity on his computer and cellphone.
Before the specifics of the federal accusation were released to the public on Friday, Iowa authorities sealed the court documents after the AP inquired about the probe earlier this month. When AP asked Gardner, Qiao, and Gardner’s old employer in Mississippi for comment, they did not reply.
The job that I ve always wanted
Most famously, Chow’s Gymnastics is the training ground for American gymnasts Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas, who went on to win gold at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
After becoming a star on the Chinese national team and relocating to the US to teach at the University of Iowa, Qiao built the gym in 1998. Some families moved to Iowa to practice at the gym, which attracted elite young gymnasts.
In September 2018, Gardner jumped at the chance to become a coach with Qiao and moved to Iowa.
I’ve wanted this job my entire life. Since I started coaching, Chow is truly someone I have admired, Gardner told the ABC affiliate WOI-TV in 2019. And you can know as soon as you go into the gym because of the culture he has created, even from coaching the girls. It’s incredible. It’s stunning.
Gardner was elevated to director of the Chow’s Winter Classic, an annual competition that brings over 1,000 gymnasts to Iowa, a year later. Throughout his four years at Chow’s, he also served as coach of a junior Olympic squad.
Although several of his pupils received scholarships to play gymnastics in college, Gardner claimed he had higher aspirations.
In a 2020 interview with WOI-TV, he stated, “You want to leave a thumbprint on their life so that they remember Chow’s as family when they go off, hopefully, to school, to bigger and better things.”
Coach accused of sexual misconduct in Iowa and Mississippi
A nine-page FBI affidavit filed Friday highlights the charges against Gardner, who is accused of exploiting his position at Chow’s and his previous job at Jump In Gymnastics in Mississippi to prey on girls under his care.
According to the document, a girl told SafeSport in March 2022 that Gardner had engaged in inappropriate spotting tactics by touching her vagina and placing his hands between her legs.
It claimed that she accused Gardner of calling girls whores, sluts, and fools when he inquired about their sexual activity. She gave the names of six more possible victims and claimed that the behavior started after he was hired in 2018 and persisted until she quit the gym in 2020.
Four months after the girl’s report, in July 2022, SafeSport banned Gardner, a temporary measure it may take in extreme circumstances with adequate evidence while inquiries are conducted.
According to the FBI document, a month later, another girl reported to the center that Gardner had fondled her during workouts and engaged in other forms of physical and sexual abuse. According to the complaint, the girl said that he once pulled her across the carpet with such force that it burned her buttocks.
In accordance with its policy mandating that adults who engage with young athletes notify law enforcement of any possible criminal instances, SafeSport forwarded the information to the West Des Moines police.
Gardner was suspended from gymnastics by SafeSport, but the criminal inquiry soon ran into trouble.
Only one of their mothers called the police in 2022, despite a detective telling SafeSport to encourage the claimed victims to lodge criminal charges, according to police records. Police halted the inquiry when the woman stated that her daughter had decided not to seek criminal charges.
According to Ken Lang, a retired detective and associate professor of criminal justice at Milligan University, victims of abuse frequently refuse to cooperate with law enforcement.
“You have the prestige of this facility in this case,” he remarked. When their goal was to be successful in gymnastics, do they want to link their name in that way?
Even though Gardner was on probation for his second DUI arrest, police halted the investigation.
A dormant case reopened, and a year later, an arrest
According to a now-sealed statement filed by police detective Jeff Lyon, the case remained stalled until April 2024, when another former Chow’s pupil came forward to the West Des Moines Police Department to allege abuse charges. In accordance with its policy of not naming victims of suspected sexual assault, the AP is not identifying the student.
The now 18-year-old told police she began taking lessons from Gardner when she was 11 or 12 in 2019, initially seeing him as a father figure who tried to help her get through her parents divorce. According to the affidavit, he told her she could tell him anything.
When she moved in 2021, she told police, he gave her a hug and said she could text and follow him on Instagram and other social media sites, where he went by the nickname Coach Seanie, because gym policy barring such contact no longer applied.
Lyon’s affidavit, which summarizes her story, claims that Gardner made her perform indecent stretches that exposed her privates, caressed her back and butt while talking about his sex life, and fondled her during exercises, repeatedly caressing her vagina.
She told police she suspected he used his cellphone to film her in that position.
Reached by the AP, the teen s mother declined comment. The mother told police she was interested in a monetary settlement with Chow s because the gym had been made aware of the complaints and they did nothing to stop them, according to Lyon s affidavit. AP queries asking for comment were not answered by the gym.
It took 16 months after the teen s 2024 report for the FBI to arrest Gardner, who made an initial court appearance in Des Moines on Friday on a charge of producing visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, which can carry up to 30 years in prison. A public defender assigned to represent him didn t return AP messages seeking comment.
It s unclear why the case took so long to investigate and also when the FBI, which had to pay $138 million to Nassar s victims for botching that investigation, got involved in the case.
Justice Department watchdog finds flaws in FBI’s reporting of sex crimes against children
US government agrees to $138.7M settlement over FBI’s botching of Larry Nassar assault allegations
Justice Department in settlement talks to pay around $100 million to Larry Nassar victims, sources say
Among evidence seized by investigators in late May were 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 in 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.
They also uncovered 50 video files and 400 photos, including some that appeared to be child pornography, according to the FBI affidavit. One video allegedly shows Gardner entering the bathroom and turning off the camera.
Investigators also found images of an adult woman secretly filmed entering and exiting a bathtub, and identified her as Gardner s ex-girlfriend. That woman as well as the gym s owner, Candi Workman, told investigators the images appeared to come from Jump In Gymnastics facility in Purvis, Mississippi, which has since been closed.
SafeSport s power has limits
SafeSport has long touted that it can deliver sanctions in cases where criminal charges are not pursued as key to its mission. However, Gardner s ability to land a job in health care illustrates the limits of that power: It can ban people from sports but that sanction is not guaranteed to reach the general public.
While not commenting about Gardner s case directly, it said in a statement provided to AP that a number of issues factor into why cases can take so long to close, including the 8,000 reports it receives a year with only around 30 full-time investigators. It has revamped some procedures, it said,in an attempt to become more efficient.
While the Center is able and often does cooperate in law enforcement investigations, it said, law enforcement is not required to share information, updates, or even confirm an investigation is ongoing.
USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung called the center s task really tough, difficult to navigate.
I would like to see more consistency with their outcomes and sanctions, Leung said. I would like to see more standardization on things. I would like to see more communication, more transparency from their side.
A case that lingers, even after the SafeSport ban
As the investigation proceeded, Gardner said on his Facebook page he had landed a new job in May 2024 as a surgical technologist at MercyOne West Des Moines Medical Center. It’s a role that calls for positioning patients on the operating room table, and assisting with procedures and post-surgery care.
Asked about Gardner s employment, hospital spokesman Todd Mizener told the AP: The only information I can provide is that he is no longer” at the hospital.
Meanwhile, the case lingers, leaving lives in limbo more than three years after the SafeSport Center and police first learned of it.
SafeSport is now part of a larger problem rather than a solution, if it was ever a solution, said attorney Silvey. The most fundamental professional task such as coordination with local or federal law enforcement gets botched on a daily basis, hundreds of times a year now.
___
Pells reported from Denver. AP National Writer Will Graves contributed.
