Sexual abuse attorney 'demands' USOC de-certify USA Gymnastics
Amid reports that board members of the United States Olympic Committee want USA Gymnastics President Steve Penny to resign, a lawyer representing more than 70 alleged sexual abuse victims is urging further action.
In a letter released Thursday to Lawrence F. Probst III, president of the USOC, California attorney John Manly said he "demands" that the USOC de-certify Indianapolis-based USA Gymnastics as the sport's national governing body.
Manly is suing USA Gymnastics on behalf of alleged victims of former national team doctor Larry Nassar, who is in jail awaiting trial on state charges of child sexual abuse, as well as federal child pornography charges. Nassar has denied any wrongdoing.
Manly cited an IndyStar investigation that was first to make public abuse allegations against Nassar. It also revealed that USA Gymnastics did not report some allegations of child abuse to police, and that more than 360 gymnasts alleged sexual abuse in the past 20 years.
"The entire USA Gymnastics leadership and management shares the blame for this failure," Manly wrote. "If the wholesale rape of hundreds of children because of organizational culture and indifference is not enough, then respectfully, what is?"
USA Today, the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press reported that the USOC board will discuss Penny's fate at a meeting Thursday in Los Angeles. A 6:30 p.m. news conference is scheduled.
The calls for Penny to resign could create a clash between a high-profile national governing body, USA Gymnastics, and the USOC. It is the USA Gymnastics board of directors, not the USOC, that has authority to fire Penny. But the USOC can exert pressure.
USA Gymnastics' board of directors has been steadfast in its support of Penny. Through every new development in the sexual abuse scandal, over eight months, not one negative word was uttered publicly by a board member.
On Wednesday, USA Gymnastics released a statement in support of Penny attributed to Mary Lou Retton, 1984 Olympic gold medalist and past USA Gymnastics board member; board chairman Paul Parilla; vice chairman/secretary Jay Binder; and treasurer Bitsy Kelley.
“Steve Penny is among the strongest advocates for our athletes and has reported suspected instances of abuse to law enforcement himself," the statement said. "He takes their safety seriously, and over the course of his tenure as CEO, has strengthened USA Gymnastics policies and programs to further protect the health and well-being of athletes. Steve was instrumental in commissioning the most comprehensive, thorough and independent evaluation of our bylaws, policies, procedures and practices related to handling sexual misconduct matters. We believe the findings of Ms. (Deborah) Daniels’ review and the opening of the U.S. Center for Safe Sport will allow us to emerge even stronger.”
Penny, whose long career in sports management included stints at USA Cycling and the Seattle Mariners, joined USA Gymnastics in 1999 as its senior vice president. He became president and CEO in April 2005. Penny was paid $628,445 in 2015, according to the most recently available public tax records.
During his tenure, the organization’s elite athletes experienced their greatest successes on the international stage. USA Gymnastics has signed up a growing list of big-time sponsors, including Kellogg’s and Hershey’s, which have pumped millions of dollars into a national governing body that was deep in debt when it arrived in Indianapolis in 1983.
Penny's often-stated mantra in interviews: Win medals, grow the sport, improve customer service and increase visibility.
But he has been accused of failing to protect children while concentrating on winning Olympic medals. More than 100,000 athletes are USA Gymnastics members, about 85 percent of whom are female, according to the deposition of a former high-ranking executive of the organization.
A host of sexual abuse allegations, and criticism of how USA Gymnastics handled them, surfaced during IndyStar's investigation.
After telling IndyStar last year that it reported Nassar to law enforcement "immediately" after receiving "athlete concerns," USA Gymnastics revealed last month that it actually waited five weeks while conducting an internal investigation.
Civil lawsuits that name Penny and USA Gymnastics among the defendants allege negligence, saying the organization failed to protect gymnasts from Nassar. The plaintiffs allege that Nassar sexually abused gymnasts at the Karolyi Ranch outside Houston — an official USA Gymnastics training center. USA Gymnastics has denied the allegations.
IndyStar reported in August that USA Gymnastics failed to alert authorities to many allegations of sexual abuse by coaches — relying on a policy that enabled predators to abuse gymnasts long after USA Gymnastics had received warnings. Laws in every state require people to report suspected child abuse.
Penny said USA Gymnastics follows child abuse reporting guidelines for any state laws that exist. But in a deposition taken last year, he suggested the organization was not obligated to report allegations of sexual misconduct by coaches to authorities.
“To the best of my knowledge, there’s no duty to report if you are — if you are a third-party to some allegation,” Penny said. “You know, that lies with the person who has firsthand knowledge.”
Pressure on Penny mounted this week, and swept in the Olympic committee, when Sen. Dianne Feinstein and 15 co-sponsors introduced the Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse Act of 2017. The bill would make it a federal crime for any Olympic national governing body to fail to immediately report allegations of child sexual abuse to authorities.
Last Friday, a Georgia judge unsealed 54 sexual abuse complaint files that USA Gymnastics kept on coaches from 1996 to 2006. IndyStar fought to unseal the documents and depositions in a civil lawsuit. Among the revelations: USA Gymnastics officials who handle sexual abuse complaints acknowledged they had no legal or sex abuse training, yet would judge some complaints as hearsay based on the fact that they were not signed by a witness, victim or victim's parent.
In a statement, USA Gymnastics noted that it has banned 37 of the 54 coaches in the files, and 48 of the matters involved law enforcement.
Late last month, Dominique Moceanu, a gold medalist at the 1996 Olympics, called for Penny to resign.
And the popular gymnastics podcast GymCastic had an interview with former national team gymnast Steven Legendre and his wife Alaina, who criticized the way Penny handled a sexual misconduct claim they made about a national coach.
The revelations were added to criticisms from years past.
Former gymnast Charmaine Carnes told IndyStar she felt discouraged by Penny’s reaction to a sexual abuse complaint she and seven other women filed with the organization in 2009.
And IndyStar's investigation revealed that Penny's team did not report a 2011 sexual abuse complaint about former elite coach Marvin Sharp to police until four years later, when it received another complaint about Sharp and forwarded it to police.
Jonathan Bernstein, president of California-based Bernstein Crisis Management, said Thursday that removing Penny and seeking new leadership would allow the organization to begin to address its growing public relations crisis.
"I'm sure he's done marvelous things for the organization, but the bottom line is the harm to children took place on his watch," Bernstein said. "From a reputation management point of view, there's no way around that. It's almost inevitable that he will need to step down, no matter how good he is at his job."
De-certification of the national governing body appears less likely, but it is not unheard of. Taekwondo and team handball organizations have been de-certified in the past. The USOC threatened to de-certify USA Track & Field in 2008 if it didn't streamline its administration.
Out of Balance: An IndyStar investigation into USA Gymnastic
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