A former USA Gymnastics women’s national team coach has been arrested in Las Vegas and charged with 14 counts of lewdness with a child under 14, according to Clark County inmate records and two people familiar with the case.
Terry Gray, who also coached at high-profile gyms in Southern California and Ohio, was arrested late Friday night, nine months after he was suspended from the sport for two years by the U.S. Center for SafeSport for sexual misconduct with a minor.
Gray, 52, continued to coach young female gymnasts at SCEGA Gymnastics in Temecula during a more than year-long investigation by the U.S. Center for SafeSport until his suspension last October.
Gray’s continued coaching presence at SCEGA sparked Congressional outrage in 2018.
Gray’s arrest stems from alleged incidents at Brown’s Gymnastics, a Las Vegas club with history of producing U.S. national team members and NCAA Division I gymnasts. There are at least three alleged victims, according to a person familiar with the case. Brown coaches and employees have been cooperating with law enforcement, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
The alleged incidents took place in 2007, 2009, 2012 and 2013, according an arrest document. Gray coached in Las Vegas between 2009 and 2015, according to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He was in custody in Las Vegas Saturday and is scheduled to make a court appearance Monday morning.
The LVMPD said Saturday it seeking information on “additional victims.”
“Anyone who may have been a victim of Gray or has information about his crimes, is urged to contact the Sexual Assault Section at 702-828-3421,” the department said in a statement.
Gray’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Brown’s also did not respond to requests from comment.
Gray previously worked under Olympic team coach Mary Lee Tracy at Cincinnati Gymnastics, where he coached Morgan White and Alyssa Beckerman. White qualified for the 2000 U.S. Olympic team but was unable to compete at the Sydney Games because of injury. Beckerman was an alternate on the 2000 Olympic team.
SCEGA is recognized as a national team training center by USA Gymnastics. Gray appeared in promotional campaigns with SCEGA director Kathy Strate on the club’s social media platforms as recently as September.
Gray was placed on interim suspension on June 29, 2018 by the U.S. Center for SafeSport pending the completion of the center’s investigation. But SCEGA continued to allow him to coach at the gym until his suspension in October 2019
Under the terms of the final two-year suspension Gray “is not permitted any contact with any USA Gymnastics-sanctioned event, member club, professional member or athlete involved with USA Gymnastics member clubs or events.”
The Gray case gained national attention during a U.S. Senate hearing in July 2018 in which angry senators repeatedly cited an Orange County Register report during heated questioning of USA Gymnastics and U.S. Olympic Committee officials.
The Register report, posted a day before the hearing, detailed how Gray and other suspended coaches under USA Gymnastics and SafeSport rules were able to continue coaching young athletes at Southern California gymnastics clubs while under investigation.
Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), the chairman of a senate subcommittee looking into sexual abuse in American Olympic sports, grilled then USA Gymnastics president Kerry Perry at length over the policies and events that resulted in Gray continuing to coach at SCEGA. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), the subcommittee’s ranking member, entered the Register report into the official record of the hearing.
“I don’t understand the law and a system that the two people that are coaching in Southern California, the flaw that allows them to do that is what?” Moran asked Perry.
Perry acknowledged flaws in policies in which some coaches under investigation for sexual misconduct offenses continued to have supervised contact with minor aged athletes pending their disciplinary hearings.
Source: Orange County Register
Be First to Comment