US Gymnastics Coach Sentenced to Ninety Years For Filming Minors

A former prominent youth gymnastics coach has been sentenced to ninety years in prison after being convicted of secretly recording his minor female players while they were changing clothes and using the restroom at a gymnastics facility in the US state of Mississippi. US District Judge Kristi Johnson handed down the maximum possible penalty against Shawn Gardner, ordering thirty years behind bars for each of the three federal child pornography production counts to which he pleaded guilty. This sentence is expected to effectively amount to life imprisonment for the thirty-nine-year-old Gardner. The FBI arrest of Gardner last summer, which was first reported by the Associated Press, reignited questions regarding whether sports authorities governing gymnastics in the United States had done enough to safeguard athletes from sexual abuse by a powerful coach. Gardner pleaded guilty to placing a hidden camera inside the restroom at a gymnastics facility in Purvis, Mississippi, between December 2017 and April 2018 to record trainees. Several former athletes who trained under Gardner at Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, accused him in police reports and civil lawsuits of abusing his position to assault them. No charges have been filed against Gardner in connection with the allegations originating in Iowa, and police stated they would await the conclusion of the federal case before determining their next steps. Attorneys representing some of the athletes also accused the two governing bodies of the sport, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, of receiving reports regarding inappropriate behavior by Gardner in 2017 while failing to take action to remove him from the sport for years. SafeSport temporarily suspended Gardner in 2022 after a gymnast at the Chow institute accused him of sexual abuse, and the institute fired him at that time.