Gymnastics coach gets 90 years in girls bathroom recordings case

A once prominent youth gymnastics coach was sentenced to 90 years in prison Wednesday for secretly recording his young female students undressing and using the bathroom at a Mississippi gym, in a case that rocked the sport.

U.S. District Judge Kristi Johnson gave the maximum sentence possible to Sean Gardner, ordering that he serve 30 years in prison for each of the three federal child pornography production charges to which he pleaded guilty. The sentence likely amounts to life in prison for Gardner, 39.

Gardner's arrest last summer by the FBI, first reported by The Associated Press, renewed questions about whether U.S. gymnastics authorities had done enough to protect athletes from sexual abuse at the hands of an influential coach.

Gardner pleaded guilty to placing a hidden camera in a bathroom at a gymnastics studio in Purvis, Mississippi, between December 2017 and April 2018 to record his students. Investigators say he created videos showing close-up images of at least 10 minors naked or undressing, which they recovered from his computers years later while investigating claims that he sexually abused gymnasts in Iowa.

Investigators seized approximately 50 videos and 400 photos from Gardner's residence as evidence, according to an FBI affidavit. Gardner is allegedly seen turning off the camera in one of the videos.

Several of his former students at Chow's Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, Iowa, have alleged to police and in civil lawsuits that he used his position to prey on them. The institute was founded by prominent coach Liang "Chow" Qiao, who is known for producing Olympic champions. Gardner coached several youth prospects and served as director of an annual winter meet that drew hundreds of gymnasts to Iowa.

Gardner has not been charged in connection with any of the Iowa allegations, and police have said they would wait to determine how to proceed after the federal case concludes.

One of Gardner's former students told CBS News in May 2026 that Gardner was charismatic and that she was so young, she didn't realize her coach's behavior was abnormal, especially at the end of practice.

"Each of us would line up to get a hug, and he would kiss us on our forehead, and pat us each on the butt," Liberty Raines, who was 11 years old when she joined Jump'In Gymnastics in Purvis, said.

She added that ritual ended nearly every practice. "It was so normalized," Raines said. "I don't think any of us thought anything of it."

The mother of another young Mississippi gymnast alerted USA Gymnastics via email about her concerns regarding Gardner's behavior. Separately, Gardner's boss in Mississippi said in an email that she told USA Gymnastics about Gardner's "grooming behavior" in January 2018.

Gardner would later move to Chow's gym in Iowa in 2018, where he began coaching Finley Weldon, a skilled 11-year-old gymnast with Olympic aspirations. Weldon told CBS News in an interview last year that Gardner acted "weird" from the start, making inappropriate jokes and asking teen girls about their sex lives.

"I knew something was not really right about him," Weldon said.

Weldon says Gardner would touch her inappropriately while she was stretching and while he was spotting her during her gymnastics training.

The civil lawsuits against Gardner have alleged the sport's oversight bodies, USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Center for SafeSport, were told about inappropriate behavior by Gardner in 2017 but failed to take action to remove him from the sport for years. SafeSport temporarily suspended Gardner in 2022 after a Chow's gymnast alleged sexual abuse, and Chow's fired him then.

SafeSport has said it learned during its investigation that Chow and other coaches had been aware of allegations of sexual misconduct against Gardner but failed to report them to the center as required by its policy.