The state attorney general stated that a former U.S. Olympic gymnastics coach committed suicide on Thursday. The coach is identified as John Geddert and served as the head coach of the gold medal-winning 2012 U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team.
The coach had ties with disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar. Nassar is accused of twenty-one offenses, including various forms of human trafficking.
Nassar served as the team physician and also treated injured gymnasts at Twistars, an elite athlete facility in the Geddert-Lansing area.
Documents filed in an Eaton County court near Lansing allege that Geddert, 63, is responsible for the recruiting of minors for forced labor and the long-term injury of individuals through forced labor.
2012 also saw him face charges of hand-based molesting an adolescent. Geddert allegedly misled to investigators in 2016 when he claimed he had never heard anyone lodge a complaint against Nassar, according to authorities.
Attorney General of Michigan Dana Nessel has scheduled a news conference for the afternoon. A message was left with Geddert’s counsel requesting comment.
Although some gymnasts claim Geddert coerced them into seeing Nassar and was physically abusive, he has maintained that he had “zero knowledge” of his misconduct. Possession of child pornography and sexually assaulting gymnasts at Michigan State University and elsewhere have earned Nassar, a former physician at that institution, decades in a prison sentence.
A woman testified at Nassar’s sentencing that Geddert was cognizant in the late 1990s that Nassar had executed a “inappropriate procedure” on her when she was 16 years old. In court, a prosecutor read the accuser’s anonymous statement.
USA Gymnastics, headquartered in Indianapolis, suspended Geddert in the midst of the Nassar scandal. In 2018, he reported his retirement to his family.
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