Gymnastics coach pleads guilty to child exploitation after USA Gymnastics missed warning signs

Sean Gardner stood in federal court in Mississippi on a Monday in May and pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual exploitation of children. The gymnastics coach, who had trained elite young girls at facilities across two states, now faces between 15 and 30 years in prison for each count when he is sentenced in October.

The charges trace back to 2017 and 2018, when Gardner worked at Jump'In Gymnastics in Purvis, Mississippi. He installed a hidden camera in the girls' bathroom, recording children between the ages of six and fourteen as they undressed and changed into their leotards. The FBI seized approximately fifty videos and four hundred photographs from his residence. In at least one video, Gardner is visible turning the camera off.

But the story does not begin or end in Mississippi. In 2018, a mother of one of Gardner's young students sent an email to USA Gymnastics expressing concern about his behavior—specifically, the long front-facing hugs and extended forehead kisses he gave to the girls after practice. Around the same time, Gardner's supervisor at the Mississippi gym also alerted USA Gymnastics to what she described as his grooming behavior. Despite these warnings, USA Gymnastics did not investigate. Later that same year, Gardner relocated to Chow's Gymnastics & Dance in West Des Moines, Iowa, one of the most prestigious training centers in the country, a gym that had produced Olympic gold medalists Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas.

At Chow's, Gardner began coaching Finley Weldon, an eleven-year-old gymnast with Olympic aspirations. Weldon noticed something off about him from the beginning—inappropriate jokes, questions about teen girls' sex lives, unwanted touching during stretching and spotting. She left the gym after raising her concerns, but by then Gardner had allegedly abused at least five young gymnasts at the facility. Weldon, now eighteen, is among those suing both Gardner and Chow's. "Finley should have never laid eyes on him," said John Manly, the attorney representing her and over 180 victims in the Larry Nassar cases. "He should never have been in a gym."

Liberty Raines was eleven when she started training under Gardner in Mississippi. She remembered him as charismatic and highly respected. At the end of nearly every practice, the girls would line up for hugs—Gardner would kiss them on the forehead and pat them on the buttocks. "It was so normalized," Raines said. "I don't think any of us thought anything of it." Later, his touching during practice became more invasive. Raines was too young to process what was happening or to speak up. It was not until the FBI came to her home years later, showing her a photograph of herself changing in that bathroom, that the full weight of what had occurred became clear. "It was very traumatic and scary for me," she said.

The case represents one of the first major failures in the safeguarding systems that USA Gymnastics promised to overhaul after the Larry Nassar scandal, in which the disgraced team doctor molested multiple young gymnasts over decades while the organization looked away. Congress responded by passing the Safe Sport Authorization Act in February 2018, creating the U.S. Center for SafeSport to investigate allegations of misconduct. A SafeSport representative said the organization did not receive a report about Gardner until 2022—four years after USA Gymnastics had been warned. When SafeSport finally learned of the allegations, it suspended him immediately. The FBI arrested Gardner in August 2025 after searching his Iowa apartment and discovering the hidden camera recordings.

Manly argues that even a cursory investigation by USA Gymnastics in 2018 would have uncovered the abuse. "There was plenty of evidence," he said. "They just didn't either do it or want to see it." USA Gymnastics declined to comment beyond a brief statement acknowledging the seriousness of the case. Chow's Gymnastics and Gardner's attorney did not respond to requests for comment. Weldon, who left Iowa State after the university discontinued its gymnastics program, has entered the NCAA transfer portal hoping to join another collegiate team. "I think my passion and love for gymnastics shined way brighter than him doing what he did," she said. The question now is whether the system that failed these young athletes will finally change.