Sean Gardner, a once leading youth gymnastics coach, will be behind bars for what amounts to a life sentence, yet the legal fallout likely will continue for years.
U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson sentenced Gardner, 39, to 90 years in prison Wednesday for secretly recording his female students undressing and using the bathroom at a Mississippi gym.
Gardner pleaded guilty in May to placing a hidden camera in a bathroom at a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Miss., between December 2017 and April 2018 to record gymnasts. FBI investigators seized approximately 50 videos and 400 photos from Gardner’s residence years later while investigating claims that he sexually abused gymnasts in Iowa.
Johnson did not show leniency toward Gardner, whose guilty plea enabled him to avoid a trial that likely could have resulted in testimony from his underage victims. He will serve 30 years for each of three federal child pornography production charges, the maximum allowable sentence.
“This is one of the most reprehensible crimes prosecuted by my office,” United States Attorney J.E. Baxter Kruger said. “Coach Sean Gardner exploited his position to abuse and exploit those children he was entrusted to mentor and care for.”
Several lawsuits are pending against Gardner, USA Gymnastics and Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute, a prominent training facility West Des Moines, Iowa, that hired Gardner as a youth coach in 2018. In addition to personally coaching top youth prospects from the Midwest, Gardner served as director of an annual winter meet that drew hundreds of gymnasts to Iowa.
SafeSport, a non-profit established to prevent the abuse of athletes and and address misconduct allegations, was dismissed as a defendant in two lawsuits filed by gymnasts that allege the organization did not properly investigate Gardner. A judge determined in May that SafeSport was entitled to immunity under federal law.
The two gymnasts claim they and other preteen and teenage girls were sexually abused by Gardner at Chow’s Gymnastics and that the sport’s oversight bodies failed to stop his behavior despite complaints that began in December 2017. The lawsuits allege that prominent coach and gym owner Liang “Chow” Qiao was told that Gardner had been hugging and kissing girls and engaging in other grooming behaviors while coaching in Mississippi.
Court records obtained by the Associated Press establish that Gardner was accused of sexually abusing at least three young gymnasts at Chow’s before Gardner left the organization in 2022. He has not been 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 Jackson Field Office in Mississippi. “Sean Gardner’s reprehensible acts of manipulating and abusing children, and betraying their parents’ trust, have been brought to an end.”
The federal case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals 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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