USA Gymnastics’ review of sex abuse policies questioned

The Michigan attorney general office’s filing of 24 human trafficking and sexual assault charges against former U.S. Olympic women’s team head coach John Geddert, shortly before his suicide last month, has prompted renewed calls for USA Gymnastics to release documents and other information that would detail the extent to which the organization was aware of the sexual abuse of young athletes by prominent coaches and medical staff.

USA Gymnastics officials have consistently refused to release such documents. The organization has instead, in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, chosen to launch a series of public relations campaigns trumpeting measures that the Indianapolis-based national governing body said will better protect young gymnasts from abusive coaches and officials.

Perhaps no other move has been as widely hailed by USA Gymnastics as proof of the organization’s commitment to athlete safety as a review by Deborah Daniels, a former U.S. attorney, of the group’s handling of sexual and physical abuse cases.

Many of the measures implemented by the organization in recent years, officials said, were based on the findings in a 146-page 2017 report by Daniels following her USA Gymnastics-commissioned review which came with a nearly $500,000 price tag.

A sworn deposition given by Daniels and obtained by the Southern California News Group, however, reveals that her review was not as thorough as USA Gymnastics officials have made it out to be.

A transcript of the 2018 deposition reveals for the first time that Daniels didn’t interview many of the individuals who shaped or implemented USA Gymnastics athlete safety rules and protocols, or the coaches and officials who created the culture of abuse within the American sport that enabled the predatory behavior of Nassar, the former Olympic and national team physician, Geddert, a longtime friend and associate of Nassar, and other high profile coaches.

Even when Daniels interviewed top officials implicated in the alleged coverup of Nassar’s abuse by USA Gymnastics, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and FBI, she did not ask them about the doctor, according to the deposition transcript.

“Did you ask anybody at USA Gymnastics when they first became aware that Larry Nassar was engaging in misconduct with children?” Daniels was asked by attorney John Manly during the deposition

“I consider that to be part of my privileged conversations with USA Gymnastics,” she responded.

“So, for hypothetically, if they knew in 2005 and told you that, you are not going to tell me. Is that right?” Manly, who represents more than 100 Nassar victims, continued.

“I am not going to reveal communications with the client,” Daniels said.

“Well, if that were the case, wouldn’t that be important to your report?” Manly said.

“Would what be important to my report?” Daniels replied.

“To know — wouldn’t it be important for you to know and share with the public when USA Gymnastics first knew? In other words, in the words of Howard Baker, ‘What did they know and when did they know it?’” Manly said, alluding to a phrase made famous by Baker during the Senate Watergate hearings.

“Well, the nature of my relationship was not to identify things that I thought would be important to share with the public,” Daniels said. “The nature of my relationship with the client was to render legal advice to the client as to how they could improve their then current practices.”

The deposition was in connection to lawsuits filed by six former Olympic and World Championship team members against USA Gymnastics, the USOPC, Nassar, Geddert, former USA Gymnastics CEO Steve Penny, former U.S. national team directors Bela and Martha Karolyi, and other officials and coaches, in U.S. District Courts in Northern and Southern California.

Nassar is currently serving a 60-year sentence in federal prison after pleading guilty to child pornography charges in 2017. He also pleaded guilty in 2018 to a total of 10 sexual assault charges in two Michigan state cases.

In announcing in November 2016 what it described as an “independent review of USA Gymnastics’ handling sexual misconduct issues,” the organization said Daniels would conduct a “review of USA Gymnastics’ bylaws, policies, procedures and practices related to handling sexual misconduct matters. Daniels will consult with a variety of experts and organizations representing law enforcement, child welfare, the gymnastics community, state and local officials.”

“This evaluation is intended to review and strengthen the existing USA Gymnastics process, in addition to likely yielding important insights for other youthserving organizations,” Daniels said at the time.

Daniels and USA Gymnastics have often cited the 160 interviews she conducted as evidence of the thoroughness and expansiveness of her probe. But Daniels acknowledged in the deposition that she interviewed as few as 10 of the more than 500 alleged Nassar victims. She did not interview Olympic champion Peter Vidmar, USA Gymnastics board chairman from 2008 to 2015.

Vidmar vowed in 2011 to push for changes in USA Gymnastics by-laws that would provide greater protection for athletes from abusive coaches. Vidmar’s comments came in the wake an Orange County Register investigation that revealed 1984 Olympic head coach Don Peters, and Doug Boger, a former U.S. national team coach, had sexually abused minor-aged female gymnasts.

“We have to take a look at doing everything we can to protect the children in our sport,” Vidmar said at the time.

Daniels, as part of her review, toured the Karolyi Ranch in Central Texas, the former U.S. Olympic Training Center where Nassar regularly sexually assaulted Olympic and national team members over a period of years. But she did not interview the ranch’s owners, Bela and Martha Karolyi, she said in the deposition. Former Olympic and national team members have said the toxic culture created by the Karolyis at the ranch and at major international competitions like the Olympic Games and World Championships made them vulnerable to Nassar’s abuse.

“I sought (an interview with the Karolyis),” Daniels said, “and did not hear back.”

Daniels said she was also accompanied on the tour of the ranch by a representative of Praesidium, an organizational risk management consulting firm hired by Daniels to assist her with the review. Praesidium also provides litigation support to groups facing sexual abuse lawsuits and the company’s clients include the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and 30 Catholic archdioceses as well as more than 80 other Catholic and religious organizations and USA Swimming.

Daniels and USA Gymnastics did not respond to requests for comment.