Official in U.S. Bankruptcy case consulted with USA Gymnastics
Facing mounting criticism in 2008 for his organization’s handling of a decade-old sexual abuse case, USA Gymnastics chief executive Steve Penny hired attorney Suzette Bewley to review the Indianapolis-based national governing body’s child sexual and physical abuse prevention and response policies.
USA Gymnastics’ Participant Welfare Policy, enacted in 2009, was based on a report by Bewley.
Bewley has played a leading role in shaping the sexual and physical abuse prevention, response and education policies of USA Gymnastics and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, according to a Southern California News Group review of hundreds of pages of USA Gymnastics, USOPC, U.S. Senate and legal documents.
Bewley worked closely with USA Gymnastics on athlete safety issues from 2007 to 2017, according to documents. She served on a USA Gymnastics medical task force with disgraced U.S. Olympic and national team physician Larry Nassar in 2012. She also worked for Baker & Daniels, USA Gymnastics’ longtime law firm, from 1998 to 2004. Bewley served on a USOPC working group on Safe Sport issues in 2010 and appeared at a USOPC seminar as a consultant to USA Gymnastics in 2012.
Bewley currently works as a top law clerk for the judge mediating disputes in USA Gymnastics bankruptcy case.
The judge, James M. Carr of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in the Southern District of Indiana, was also a partner at Baker & Daniels from 1975 to 2012. He was appointed to the court in
January 2013.
Attorneys for the more than 500 women who allege they were sexually abused by Nassar said they were not aware of Bewley and Carr’s connections to USA Gymnastics and the USOPC until it was brought to their attention this week.
“I’m not going to comment on the judge because this is an ongoing matter, but I will say that if what you represented to me is true about (Bewley’s) activities as a lawyer for USA Gymnastics, I’m at a total loss as to why their lawyers didn’t raise this with the judge and disclose it,” said John Manly, who represents more than 100 survivors of Nassar and other USA Gymnastics coaches.
“She not only was apparently a longtime lawyer for them, she was the architect of their child protection plan,” Manly continued, referring to Bewley’s work for USA Gymnastics both with Baker & Daniels and as a consultant. “Now she works in the office of our neutral trying to settle these cases. That to me is irreconcilable, very troubling and deserving of further investigation.
“(Bewley) is not only (USA Gymnastics’) attorney, she’s a witness. In my head, I don’t know how I tell my clients that an attorney working for the judge mediating this case served on a medical task force for USA Gymnastics with Larry Nassar. I’m at a loss for words and I feel sick.”
Bewley, Carr and USA Gymnastics did not respond to requests for comment. The USOPC declined to comment.
“I can’t believe (Bewley) did not recuse herself,” said Nancy Hogshead-Makar, an Olympic swimming champion, civil rights lawyer, law professor, and founder and CEO of Champion Women, a non-profit providing legal advocacy for girls and women in sports. “It is head exploding.
“I think about all the resources spent by USA Gymnastics between 2015 and now in 2021. How much time and money they’ve spent and USA Gymnastics still can’t get out of their own way.”
USA Gymnastics, facing hundreds of lawsuits from survivors of sexual and physical abuse, filed for protection under Chapter 11 in U.S. Bankruptcy for the Southern District of Indiana in December 2018.
The bankruptcy filing triggered an automatic stay on all other litigation facing USA Gymnastics. The stay also froze a USOPC bid to strip USA Gymnastics of its national governing body status.
Carr was appointed as the mediator in the case on Sept. 2, 2020. In a sworn statement filed with the court on November 20, Carr stated “I know of no reason that would or could (a) affect my neutrality or impartiality as a mediator, or (b) result in my disqualification to the Bankruptcy Rules for the Southern District of Indiana.”
In another Sept. 2 order by Robyn L. Moberly, chief judge for the Southern District, attorneys in the USA Gymnastics case were instructed to send proposals for Carr to Bewley and another clerk in the office.
The survivors in the case have rejected a proposed $217 million settlement agreement that attorneys for USA Gymnastics filed with the bankruptcy court in early 2020. The women and their attorneys dismissed the proposed settlement in large part because it called for the release of USA Gymnastics, the USOPC, Penny, former national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi,
and former U.S. Olympic team coach Don Peters (who is banned for life) from all claims, but does not address the extent USA Gymnastics and USOPC officials were aware of the predatory behavior of Nassar and others, and what steps, if any, they took to conceal that sexual abuse from unknowing potential victims.
Settlement talks have also been stalled by disputes between the two sides over whether USA Gymnastics and the USOPC should be forced to provide survivors’ attorneys with more disclosure regarding their finances and insurance coverage, and whether the USOPC should contribute to any settlement payout.
“The thing that needs to happen is (the survivors) need to get this out of bankruptcy court and back into civil court where you can do a real investigation, do discovery,” Hogshead-Makar said.
Internal Revenue Service filings and other financial records show that USA Gymnastics retained Baker & Daniels, later known as Faegre Baker Daniels, between 2005 and 2008. Records are not available for years prior to 2005.
Former congresswoman Mary Bono, who resigned as USA Gymnastics CEO in October 2018 after just four days on the job, generated more than $1.5 million in lobbying fees over a threeyear period for the firm, according to federal lobbying records.
Bono was hired as a senior vice president by Faegre Baker Daniels Consulting, a division of Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, in March 2013, four months after she lost her re-election bid for the U.S. House of Representatives California 45th congressional district.