Years after abuse reports, ex-coach at renowned US gymnastics academy is
arrested by FBI
[August 19, 2025]
By RYAN J. FOLEY and EDDIE PELLS
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. gymnastics world was only just
recovering from a devastating sexual abuse scandal when a promising
young coach moved from Mississippi to Iowa to take a job in 2018 at an
elite academy known for training Olympic champions.
Liang “Chow” Qiao, the owner of Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in
West Des Moines, thought highly enough of his new hire, Sean Gardner, to
put him in charge of the club's premier junior event and to coach some
of its most promising girls.
But four years later, Gardner was gone from Chow’s with little notice.
USA Gymnastics, the organization rocked by the Larry Nassar sex-abuse
crisis that led to the creation of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, had
been informed by the watchdog group that Gardner was suspended from all
contact with gymnasts.
The reason for Gardner’s removal wasn’t disclosed. But court records
obtained exclusively by The Associated Press show the coach was accused
of sexually abusing at least three young gymnasts at Chow’s and secretly
recording others undressing in a gym bathroom at his prior job in
Mississippi.
Last week, more than three years after being suspended from coaching,
the FBI arrested Gardner, 38, on a federal child pornography charge. But
his disciplinary case has still not been resolved by SafeSport, which
handles sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports.
In cases like Gardner’s, the public can be in the dark for years while
SafeSport investigates and sanctions coaches. SafeSport requires that
allegations be reported to police to ensure abusers don’t run unchecked
outside of sports, but critics say the system is a slow, murky process.
“From an outward operational view, it seems that if SafeSport is
involved in any way, the situation turns glow-in-the-dark toxic,” said
attorney Steve Silvey, a longtime SafeSport critic who has represented
people in cases involving the center.
While acknowledging there can be delays as its investigations unfold,
SafeSport defended its temporary suspensions in a statement as “a unique
and valuable intervention” when there are concerns of a risk to others.
Nevertheless, in 2024, Gardner was able to land a job helping care for
surgical patients at an Iowa hospital — two years after the abuse
allegations against him were reported to SafeSport and the police.
And it was not until late May that West Des Moines police executed a
search warrant at his home, eventually leading to the recovery of a
trove of photos and videos on his computer and cellphone of nude young
girls, court records show.
Authorities in Iowa sealed the court documents after the AP asked about
the investigation earlier this month, before details of the federal
charge were made public Friday. Gardner, Qiao and Gardner’s former
employer in Mississippi did not respond to AP requests for comment.
‘The job that I’ve always wanted’
Chow’s Gymnastics is best known as the academy where U.S. gymnasts Shawn
Johnson and Gabby Douglas trained before becoming gold medalists at the
2008 and 2012 Olympics.
Qiao opened the gym in 1998 after starring on the Chinese national team
and moving to the United States to coach at the University of Iowa. The
gym became a draw for top youth gymnasts, with some families moving to
Iowa to train there.
Gardner moved to Iowa in September 2018, jumping at the opportunity to
coach under Qiao.
“This is the job that I’ve always wanted. Chow is really someone I have
looked up to since I’ve been coaching,” Gardner told the ABC affiliate
WOI-TV in 2019. “And you can tell when you step foot in the gym, just
even from coaching the girls, the culture that he’s built. It’s amazing.
It’s beautiful.”
A year later, Gardner was promoted to director of Chow’s Winter Classic,
an annual meet that draws more than 1,000 gymnasts to Iowa. He also
coached a junior Olympics team during his four-year tenure at Chow’s.
Several of his students earned college gymnastics scholarships, but
Gardner said he had bigger goals.
“You want to leave a thumbprint on their life, so when they go off
hopefully to school, to bigger and better things, that they remember
Chow’s as family,” he said in a 2020 interview with WOI-TV.
Coach accused of sexual misconduct in Iowa and Mississippi
Gardner is accused of abusing his position at Chow’s and his former job
at Jump’In Gymnastics in Mississippi to prey on girls under his
tutelage, according to a nine-page FBI affidavit released Friday that
summarizes the allegations against him.
A girl reported to SafeSport in March 2022 that Gardner used
“inappropriate spotting techniques” in which he would put his hands
between her legs and touch her vagina, the affidavit said.
It said she alleged Gardner would ask girls if they were sexually active
and call them “idiots, sluts, and whores.” She said this behavior began
after his hiring in 2018 and continued until she left the gym in 2020
and provided the names of six other potential victims.
SafeSport suspended Gardner in July 2022 – four months after the girl's
report – a provisional step it can take in severe cases with “sufficient
evidentiary support” as investigations proceed.
A month after that, the center received a report from another girl
alleging additional “sexual contact and physical abuse,” including that
Gardner similarly fondled her during workouts, the FBI affidavit said.
The girl said that he once dragged her across the carpet so hard that it
burned her buttocks, the affidavit said.
SafeSport shared the reports with West Des Moines police, in line with
its policy requiring adults who interact with youth athletes to disclose
potential criminal cases to law enforcement.
While SafeSport's suspension took Gardner out of gymnastics, the
criminal investigation quickly hit a roadblock.
Police records show a detective told SafeSport to urge the alleged
victims to file criminal complaints, but only one of their mothers
contacted police in 2022. That woman said her daughter did not want to
pursue criminal charges, and police suspended the investigation.
Victims of abuse are often reluctant to cooperate with police, said Ken
Lang, a retired detective and associate professor of criminal justice at
Milligan University.
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This undated photo provided by the Iowa Department of Corrections
shows Sean Gardner after he was arrested for a second drunken
driving offense in 2024. (Iowa Department of Corrections via AP)
“In this case you have the prestige of this facility,” he said. “Do
they want to associate their name with that, in that way, when their
aspirations were to succeed in gymnastics?”
Police suspended the investigation, even as Gardner was on probation
for his second-offense of driving while intoxicated.
A dormant case reopened, and a year later, an arrest
The case stayed dormant until April 2024 when another former Chow’s
student came forward to the West Des Moines Police Department to
report abuse allegations, according to a now-sealed affidavit signed
by police detective Jeff Lyon. The AP is not identifying the student
in line with its policy of not naming victims of alleged sexual
abuse.
The now 18-year-old told police she began taking lessons from
Gardner when she was 11 or 12 in 2019, initially seeing him as a
“father figure” who tried to help her get through her parents’
divorce. He told her she could tell him “anything,” the affidavit
said.
When she moved in 2021, she told police, he gave her a hug and said
she could text and follow him on Instagram and other social media
sites, where he went by the nickname “Coach Seanie,” because gym
policy barring such contact no longer applied.
According to a summary of her statement provided in Lyon’s
affidavit, she said Gardner fondled her during exercises, repeatedly
touching her vagina; rubbed her back and butt and discussed his sex
life; and made her do inappropriate stretches that exposed her
privates.
She told police she suspected he used his cellphone to film her in
that position.
Reached by the AP, the teen’s mother declined comment. The mother
told police she was interested in a monetary settlement with Chow’s
because the gym “had been made aware of the complaints and they did
nothing to stop them,” according to Lyon’s affidavit. The gym didn’t
return AP messages seeking comment.
It took 16 months after the teen’s 2024 report for the FBI to arrest
Gardner, who made an initial court appearance in Des Moines on
Friday on a charge of producing visual depictions of minors engaging
in sexually explicit conduct, which can carry up to 30 years in
prison. A public defender assigned to represent him didn’t return AP
messages seeking comment.
It’s unclear why the case took so long to investigate and also when
the FBI, which had to pay $138 million to Nassar’s victims for
botching that investigation, got involved in the case.
Among evidence seized by investigators in late May were a cellphone,
laptop and a desktop computer along with handwritten notes between
Gardner and his former pupils, according to the sealed court
documents.
They found images of girls, approximately 6 to 14 years in age, who
were nude, using the toilet or changing into leotards, those
documents show. Those images appear to have come from a hidden
camera in a restroom.
They also uncovered 50 video files and 400 photos, including some
that appeared to be child pornography, according to the FBI
affidavit. One video allegedly shows Gardner entering the bathroom
and turning off the camera.
Investigators also found images of an adult woman secretly filmed
entering and exiting a bathtub, and identified her as Gardner’s
ex-girlfriend. That woman as well as the gym’s owner, Candi Workman,
told investigators the images appeared to come from Jump’In
Gymnastics’ facility in Purvis, Mississippi, which has since been
closed.
SafeSport’s power has limits
SafeSport has long touted that it can deliver sanctions in cases
where criminal charges are not pursued as key to its mission.
However, Gardner’s ability to land a job in health care illustrates
the limits of that power: It can ban people from sports but that
sanction is not guaranteed to reach the general public.
While not commenting about Gardner’s case directly, it said in a
statement provided to AP that a number of issues factor into why
cases can take so long to close, including the 8,000 reports it
receives a year with only around 30 full-time investigators. It has
revamped some procedures, it said, in an attempt to become more
efficient.
“While the Center is able and often does cooperate in law
enforcement investigations,” it said, “law enforcement is not
required to share information, updates, or even confirm an
investigation is ongoing.”
USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung called the center’s task
“really tough, difficult to navigate.”
“I would like to see more consistency with their outcomes and
sanctions,” Leung said. “I would like to see more standardization on
things. I would like to see more communication, more transparency
from their side.”
A case that lingers, even after the SafeSport ban
As the investigation proceeded, Gardner said on his Facebook page he
had landed a new job in May 2024 as a surgical technologist at
MercyOne West Des Moines Medical Center. It's a role that calls for
positioning patients on the operating room table, and assisting with
procedures and post-surgery care.
Asked about Gardner’s employment, hospital spokesman Todd Mizener
told the AP: “The only information I can provide is that he is no
longer" at the hospital.
Meanwhile, the case lingers, leaving lives in limbo more than three
years after the SafeSport Center and police first learned of it.
“SafeSport is now part of a larger problem rather than a solution,
if it was ever a solution,” said attorney Silvey. “The most
fundamental professional task such as coordination with local or
federal law enforcement gets botched on a daily basis, hundreds of
times a year now.”
___
Pells reported from Denver. AP National Writer Will Graves
contributed.
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